


I Can't Believe It!

by RiverKaze



Series: Space, Stars, and Love [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe, Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Humor, Multi, Mystery, Second-Hand Embarrassment, Space Battles, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Swearing, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 08:58:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14077401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverKaze/pseuds/RiverKaze
Summary: A space battle gone astray will cause issues that none of the paladins could have ever predicted. How they handle the fall out of their actions will determine the fate of one of their own.





	1. The Cause

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first fanfic ever and it might turn out horribly because I'm trying to be all mysterious but hey it might work out D: hopefully I can get these chapters out to you all relatively fast.
> 
> Also it's not beta-ed so mistakes are my own and please point them out for me. Thanks.

Flying in the Blue lion of Voltron was always exhilarating for Lance, it would cause his heart to sore and the low rumbling of Blue in his head always caused a delighted laugh to bubble in the back of his throat. It didn't really matter if the Galra were attacking or if it was just a recon mission he loved flying Blue. The only time he didn't love flying Blue was when he cause her trouble and this was one such time.  
  
"Lance, watch your back!" Lance hear over the comms before an explosion sounded behind him.  
  
"Thanks, Pidge!" He answered as he rammed a Galran ship into another. "These guys are just relentless today!"  
  
Lance sliced through more fighter ships as he looked around for the main battleship all the fighters should be coming from. It seemed odd that he couldn't see it but as he was about to voice his observations he caught sight of Keith and Shiro off to the edge of the fight, doing fancy flight work. If you asked Lance, not that he would tell them, but it almost looked like their lions were dancing. A little ways off from them was Hunk mowing down enemy with his shoulder cannon, a large smile graced his lips as he watched his friend for a tick before looking around for Pidge and the battle cruiser that should be here somewhere.  
  
He spotted Pidge a little ways away and in trouble, so without thinking he shot ice through Blues tail at the enemy's surrounding Pigde and tried to move toward them.  
  
"Ah, guys?" Lance said, as he strained against Blues controls. "Ugh come on Blue, move!" He shouted to his lion. He could hear her send him a warning growl that something was missing, other than the cruiser, but both couldn't figure out what.  
  
"Lance, what are you doing?!" He hear Keith shout though the comms. "Do you 'ever' watch your back!" He hear a sigh from Keith as another explosion sounded behind him before watching as Keith flew off into the direction of Pidge and Hunk.  
  
"Well I was trying to scan for the cruiser that should be here somewhere!" He shouted back to Keith as he took down another fighter now that Blue was moving again. " Don't you think it's weird that there's all these fighter and no cr-"  
  
He didn't get to finish as something felt like it hit both him and Blue but they didn't move. Lance could hear Blues pained whines or maybe they were his own. Whatever hit him felt so wrong and he couldn't think properly, it felt like his brain was slowing down and he could do nothing to stop it. He heard the shouts of his fellow paladins but couldn't understand what they were saying, all he could do was sit in his seat dumbly watching as the cruiser finally made an appearance and shoot at the Blue lion with some kind of gas or fog. It floated around the Blue lion for what felt like Vargas but was only ticks before it seemed to dissipate. By the time it was done Lance felt more like himself instead of a vacant vegetable.  
  
"What the quiznak was that, guys?!" Lance shouted, a bit of distress escaping into his voice. He reached out for Blue to make sure when was fine as well and got a short answering growl.  
  
"Lance, watch out!" He hear all the team shout at him. He didn't have much time to react as the battleships ion cannon fire and only missed him by a hair. His breath was coming quick with panic as he tried to move as far from the battleship as possible only to notice that it wasn't there.  
  
"Guys, where the hell did the battleship go?!" Lance could feel himself shaking a little, a ship that big should be able to disappear in front of him, literally.  
  
"We can't fight an invisible enemy right now," Shiro commanding voice wrung out calming Lance down somewhat, "let's head back to the castle ship and come up with a better plan of attack."  
  
Lance heard all the affirmatives from the rest of the team and gave his as well before heading toward the Castle-ship that still had its sheilds up. He felt paranoid but he was watching his own back now to make sure there wasn't enemys following himself and the other paladins but what he saw sent a shiver down his spine. All the fighters from the battleship seemed to just disappear, like stars twinkling out of existance. He didn't know what was going on but something just wasn't right with those ships and he sure hoped they just looked like Galra instead of being the real thing.  
  
He'd seen some weird shit in space but this just topped everything so far.

  
  


As soon as Lance touched down into the Castle-ship he could hear Allura through the speakers.  
  
"Paladins, stay in your lions, I am about to move us though a wormhole." Allura stated with all the elegance a princess should have. Lance would always admire how royal she always sounded, it always seemed to get his heart fluttering.  
  
"Will do, princess." He heard Shiro say over their comms. Lance muted his mic quickly to hide the snicker trying to escape his lips, Shiro had it 'bad' for the princess. Lance would always be a bit disappointed that the princess didn't take to his advances but could totally understand with the way she looked at Shiro, Lucky bastard.  
  
"How you doing Blue?" Lance asked his lion, he was really concerned for her when she wasn't responding to him like usual. After a few ticks he could feel her sending him images and feeling to explain to him. He felt himself shaking again when she was done, "are ... are you ... sure, Blue?" He could hear his voice shake horribly but there was nothing he could do to stop it, especially after she confirmed the worst.

  
  


Keith stood outside his lion as he heard Allura confirm they had made it safely through the wormhole. He was just about to jog over to the elevator to get out of his armour when he felt something from Red. She wasn't usually one for conversation so it startled Keith as he turned around to look up at her.  
  
"What is it, girl?" Keith asked as he moved to touch her front paw. As soon as he had he was flooded with the feeling of panic and the colour blue. He sucked in a long breath then headed in the direction of the Blue lions hangar.  
  
He could tell something was wrong when he saw the Blue lion lying on the ground with its mechanical tail wrapped around it as it seemed to be sleeping curled into a tight ball.  
  
"Hey, Blue," Keith said as softly as he could muster, " what's up girl, where's Lance?" Just as he finished saying that the Blue lion opened its mouth. Keith took a cauitious step closer to look in. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary but he still moved with caution as he walked into Blue's mouth and further into the cockpit. The lights were on already when he walked in, which told him that Lance was probably still in here, and as he moved closer to the front wheel the controls sat he could just make out Lance's limbs drawn in close to his chest with his head tucked down between his knees. "Lance?" Keith said as he placed a hand on Lance's shoulder, causing Lance to start. Keith waited a tick until Lance's head moved up from his knees to look Keith in the eye.  
  
Keith sucked in a sharp breath at the sight in front of him. Lance's eyes were swimming with tears that streamed down his face in a non stop waterfall. He's lip was trembling with the force of holding in a sob that was causing his shoulders to shake also. However, Keith couldn't get over how beautiful he looked, his cheeks were flushed a gorgeous red and his eyes looked like the most beautiful clear ocean he had ever seen, they looked like they were moving and twirling with waves. Keith could feel his ears start to flush but didn't think too much of it as this was one of the reasons he had long hair, he flush way too easy and that was just embarassing.  
  
Keith crouched down in front of Lance and gave him a warm smile and said softly. "Allura said we are through the wormhole, so you can come out of Blue now." He stood back up and extended his hand for Lance to take, "come on, I think Hunk said he was going to try making cookies again with the food goo."  
  
He could see the shock and indisition on Lance's face as he waited a full dobosh before moving his had away. "I guess it's your loss then if I get to Hunk's cookies first." He said with a large challenging smirk on his lips. He could tell that was what got Lance moving, it always had to be a challenge, Keith internally sighed.  
  
"Oh ho, you think you could beat 'me' to the kitchen?!" Lance practically shouted with indignation, "yeah let's see who the fastest then shall we, mullet?"  
  
At the nickname Keith bristled, "sure, it will give me something to laugh about later when I leave you in the dust!" Keith all but shouted, running out of Blue and to the elevator. He could hear Lance shouting behind him saying something about it being 'unfair' and that Keith had 'already cheated'. Keith found himself laughing quietly as he ran down the halls to the kitchen.

  
  


He arrived at the kitchen door, panting softly from the run. Just as he pressed for the door to open Lance made the last turn and barreled straight into Keith, causing Keith to stumble out of the doorway as Lance shot through it, shouting in triumph.  
  
"Ha, I beat you mullet!" Lance shouted jumping up and down, pointing at Keith, "and I didn't need to cheat to do it!" Lance added with a poke of his tongue.  
  
"What do you mean you won?" Keith almost shouted back, "I got here first!"  
  
Lance tsked as he made his way toward Hunk, "Yeah, well, I got into the kitchen first, so I won." Lance stated like it should be obvious, which it was to him.  
  
"Come on guys," Hunk said, exasperated. "No fighting in the kitchen, you know the rule."  
  
Keith could see the quick change in emotions that crossed Lance's face at what Hunk had said. It shifted so quickly from playful to concerned that it almost made Keith concerned as well, but he knew better, Hunk had witheld some of his creations from Lance before, all because of their fighting, and it had looked like it had nearly crushed him. Keith had been denied as well but it didn't really affect him to such a degree.  
  
"Noooo..." Lance whined as he draped himself over Hunk's back, wrapping his arms around Hunk's neck, "pleeeaase no!" He whined right into Hunk's ear, causing Keith to wince in sympathy.  
  
"Oh quiznak, Lance," Hunk said scrunching up his nose, "go have a shower, you kind of smell."  
  
This caused Lance to laugh as he got off his best friends back. "I smell awesome, thank you!" He said sarcastically as he pointed finger guns at Hunk as he walked backward toward the kitchen door. He side-eyed Keith as he went by and spoke quietly so Hunk couldn't hear. "I still won." He said as he all but bolted out the door and towards the showers.  
  
Keith couldn't help the fond smile as he stared after Lance, however before he could follow after him he heard Hunk clearing his throat making Keith turned towards him quizically. He kind of wished he hadn't when he saw the look Hunk was pointedly giving him, it was definitely one he could have do without seeing.  
  
"You know," Hunk started as he turned back to his cooking, "if you hurt him we won't have a red paladin anymore."  
  
Keith raised his eyebrows in surprise at the threat he got from the yellow paladin, it was something he hadn't personally encountered. Then, what Hunk was implying hit him and he could feel his full face flush the same colour as the Red lion herself. " I ... I don ..." Keith sputtered badly in embarassment as Hunk just chuckled at him causing his embarrassment to rise. " He ... He doesn't ... Doesn't even like me!" Keith ended his sentence with a shouted as he started to pant hard. He realised he hadn't denied Hunk's accusations and his eyes widened. He had to remedy this somehow. "And I ... I..." He just could get himself to say he didn't like Lance out loud and it felt as if that was more of an admittance then anything.  
  
Keith gave up on words and just looked at his feet, scuffling his boot sightly on the polished floor. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Hunk smiling at him.  
  
"Don't worry too much Keith," Hunk said before moving in to hug Keith, with his armour still on it made the hug a little awkward but it didn't seem to deter Hunk. "And he does like you."  
  
Keith scoffed into Hunk's shoulder, lifting his head up to look Hunk in the eyes as he stared at him in disbelief. "Yeah, sure he does." Keith said sarcastically before letting go of Hunk to make his way out of the kitchen. As he neared he doorway he heard Hunk sigh softly to himself though Keith kept moving, he also needed a shower.


	2. Weird sayings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy good Friday everyone, hope your enjoying the holiday.

Lance made his way to the showers, he needed to get out of his armour, as well as his bodysuit as it was sticking to him in places he'd rather not think about right now. He tried not to let his mind wonder to his conversation with Blue but it was hard not to with Blues reassuring purrs in the back of his mind. He felt both comforted and panicked as he knew he would have to tell the others about what happened in their earlier fight with the Galra and he sure was not looking forward to that conversation.

He was lost in thought as he made it to the shower door, or what he thought was the door to the showers. He opened it, only to be met with a closet full of linen.

"What...?" He asked himself as he turned to look up and down the hallway. He saw he door that opened to the showers on his left, the way he had came, and laughed to himself. He'd missed the shower door by one.

Without a second thought he grabbed a towel out of the linen closet and headed to the showers to start stripping off his armour and placing it in its designated spot among the others armour. He noticed two sets missing still but didn't really register whose. He knew at least one was Keith's, because he'd beaten him again. Lance felt a smirk cross his face at the thought of beating Keith twice in one day.

Once undressed of his armour, he moved to one of the shower cubicles and threw his towel over the door. He locked it before trying to extract himself from his bodysuit, it seemed to be sticking to him extra well today, which made Lance groan with the effort. He eventually got it off and threw it over the door, missing completely, and watching the garment disappear over the other side. He shrugged to himself, he would get it when he got out, and turned toward the shower head as it started to produce water, Hunk and Pidge had tested it and it was indeed just plain water, which was a relief to everyone.

He heard the door to the showers make that mechanical whoosh sound before an exasperated 'Lance' came from in front of his cubicle. He could tell it was Shiro, so he knew that his bodysuit would be put into the laundry bin for him. Shiro just couldn't help himself could he, Lance thought as he washed his hair and tried to stifle a snicker. 

"Thanks, space dad Shiro," Lance called, unable to hide his laughter this time. He heard the laundry bin open, and Shiro's world weary sigh, before turning the water off. He grabbed his towel, rubbing the water from his hair before wrapping the towel around his waist. Once he stepped out of the cubicle he was greeted to the view of Shiro stripping himself of his bodysuit, he only had the top half off before stopping as Lance whistled distractedly and eyeing Shiro's chest with an approving gaze.

"Damn, Allura's one lucky princess." Lance said without thinking. He only realised he had said it out loud when his eyes drifted to Shiro's face and saw how Shiro's eyes were wide, his mouth agape, and his face completely red. Lance took a second to understand what he had just blurted out loud before he gripped where his towel was tied together and ran from the room, leaving a very stunned Shiro in his wake.

~~~

Keith watched as Lance ran passed him, half naked and red faced. He couldn't figure out what had caused it, until he made his way in to the shower room. When he got there he was greeted with Shiro, standing stock still, and with a shocked look on his face.

"Shiro?" Keith questioned. It seemed to snap Shiro out of whatever stupor he had gotten himself into and he turned to Keith with a red face.

"Ahh..." Shiro mumbled as he looked at Keith still a little shocked. "Um yeah, what's up, Keith?"

Keith eyes him suspiciously. "Nothing." He lied, his little conversation with Hunk still bothering him quite a bit, "what's up with you?"

"Oh, nothing." Shiro replied, nonchalant, however his face was still red. "Just, you know, a weird talk with Lance."

Keith snorted, of course it had to do with Lance. He knew that Lance had feelings for Shiro, though he wasn't sure what kind of feeling they were exactly, and he knew he could never compete with Shiro. I mean, Keith thought dejectedly, Shiro's nice and kind and generous and not to mention how gorgeous he was in both looks and personality. Keith hummed, it felt kind of weird to think of someone you thought of as a brother that way, still he couldn't help to when he was trying to figure out what Lance's type was. His ears flushed as he thought of Lance's type, from what he could tell they were usually beautiful, authoritative, but also kind, and generous. So in other words, Keith thought, absolutely nothing like me.

"Yeah, when is Lance not weird?" He said quietly to himself as he went into his own cubicle to shower, a bit dejected by his own thoughts. He heard a small laugh from Shiro before his water turned on and they continued their showers in silence.

~~~

Lance didn't want to leave his room after what he'd said to Shiro. He'd been pacing back and forth since getting properly dressed and he didn't know what to do. Quiznak, why did I say that?!, Lance shouted in his head, I'm such an idiot! He took a breath and sat on the edge of his bed trying to calm his thoughts from racing. He still needed to talk to Allura about the battle and he didn't really know if he trusted himself to not spew something embarrassing.

He was screwed, that's all he knew, he would say something dumb. Probably something incriminating, like how he might have a teenie weenie little, massive, crush on a certain red paladin. With his lack of brain to mouth filter at the moment he knew that's what would happen and then that certain paladin would beat him into the ground until he couldn't form cognitive thought. He was screwed.

Urgh, what has been with me lately, Lance thought desperately. Maybe he was getting the space flu, he knew Allura has said it wasn't a thing and Coran had said they had a state of the art air filtration system but he still just didn't feel right. Maybe he should go to Coran and get checked for whatever was wrong, because something was definitely wrong.

Lance, however, wanted to go see how Hunk was doing with the cookies more that getting checked for a cold. He hadn't noticed though, that he had been so tired from his stressing that he'd laid down in his bed, now that he was a lot calmer. He felt as though he couldn't move with his limbs starting to feel like lead. He pulled the blanket over himself with he last of his willpower, before he felt his eyes start to close. Maybe a small nap wouldn't be too bad, he thought as he began to slip from consciousness, Hunk will have the cookies done by the time I wake up. Lance stretched out slowly into a more comfortable position in bed, with his face smashed into his pillow. He was going to drool, he knew it, but he couldn't care less, as he was beyond cozy.

Lance's last thought was about space cookies and a certain someone, sporting a mullet, and the most beautiful, and kind of inhuman, shade of violet eyes he'd ever seen.

~~~

A loud knocking at Lance's door startled him awake, he quickly wiped away as much drool as he could. He felt it had ran down his chin from his mouth. He made a disgusted noise at the feeling of his drool having dried on his face and gave up on it, groaning as he sat up properly on his bed.

"Yeah?" Lance slurred slightly from sleep as he heard another loud knock. "Come in."

The sound of the mechanical door drew Lance's eyes toward his intruder and saw Keith standing in the doorway, a plate of food in his hand. He felt his cheeks redden slightly, thinking about the dried saliva on his face as well as the probable red marks from sleeping on his pillow weird, but he knew Keith had seen him much, much worse, so he wasn't too bothered.

He watch as Keith moved to set the plate of food on the shelf then made his way to the end of Lance's bed to sat down, turning toward Lance like he was expecting something. Problem was, that Lance had absolutely no clue why Keith would be in his room or brining him food, let alone expect anything. He continued to stare Keith down because he knew his voice would crack embarrassingly from sleep if he started the conversation and he didn't need any more mortification today.

"Umm..." Keith started, rubbing the back of his neck with his gloved hand.

"Why are you always wearing those gloves?" Lance said, startling them both with his unexpected query and crackling voice. I knew it would crack, he thought to himself, beyond embarrassed. He opened his mouth to somehow remedy the situation, only for Keith to beat him to the chase, though he didn't answer the question.

"You missed Hunk's cookies," Keith stated, softly, letting his hand fall to his lap and interlocking his fingers together. "And dinner, I was ...maybe a little ... worried ... because of what happened ... in Blue."

From he grimace on Keith face, Lance knew he caught the wince that passed over his, "Aww ...." Lance said with a sarcastic smirk. "You do care!"

"I, ugh.... I saved you a cookie, they were really good and went really quick," Keith chuckled lightly, mischievous glint in his eyes. "Though I don't know if I want to share it now."

Lance eyes widened and he lunged for the plate of food Keith had bought with him. Huh, Lance thought as he stared down at the plate that was now in his lap, he did bring me one. A genuine smile crossed his face as he looked down at the plate before looking back up to Keith. Lance could see the light blush that worked its way across Keith cheeks and smiled reassuringly at him, "Thanks man, you're not so annoying after all." 

Lance outright laughed at the scrunched up face Keith made at that statement but Lance could see that he was holding back a smile. "Too bad, your smile is gorgeous." Lance said without even realising he had at all. Instead grabbing the cookie and taking a bite, he moan at the taste, Hunk was a true culinary genius. He smiled around the bite of cookie at Keith once more, however he smiled wider when Keith's blush darkened.

"Um, thanks," Keith replied, timidly.

Lance slowly swallowed the food in his mouth, because the unexpected thanks meant that he must have he said something dumb.  
"Um," Lance said quietly before gaining some confidence. "thanks again, for dinner," Lance said in a joyous manner to cover up his nerves, before getting off his bed and making his way to the door. He knew his flush had come back with the unsuspected thanks and that it would be obvious, but he would just blame it on He fact he was asleep not long ago and would likely be asleep soon anyway. He took a long silent breath, trying and failing to calm himself down a little, before gesturing to the door with a flourish of his hands and an uptick in his eyebrow.

He watched as Keith made his way out the door. Lance tried to keep his eyes up but he just couldn't help but get a peek at Keith's behind. Lance berated himself as his flush darkened and he bit his bottom lip between his teeth to make sure he didn't say anything even more damaging. He was kicking himself internally, what had he said earlier, quiznak, he was screwed, Keith was probably going to kill him in his sleep.

Keith had turned back to him, probably some sort of threat, however Lance could see the concern on Keith's face as he looked him over. This confused Lance a bit, until he realised what he possibly looked like; red faced, biting his own lip with an expression of pain on his face. He really felt like he wanted to laugh and then maybe cry, his emotions seemed to be all over the place, just what was with me lately, Lance thought a little annoyed at himself.

"You haven't got a fever, do you?" Keith asked as his eyes darted back and forth across Lance's face, like he could see whatever was wrong with him. All Lance could do was shake his head, not trusting himself to speak. Keith gave him one last, disbelieving, look before saying goodnight.

Keith stood in front of the door for a while, like he still had something to say, but before he could Lance broke the silence. "Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to watch me sleep all night?" Lance said with a smirk as he leaned on the door frame.

Keith glared at Lance ridiculously, but eventually turned on his heels and made his way down the hall to his own room. Keith waved his goodbye as he headed down the hallway not giving Lance a second glance.

Lance turned back to his room when he couldn't see Keith down the hall any longer and sat down on his bed again, looking down at the food Keith had brought him. That Keith had brought him, Lance was so over thrilled by such a small thing he felt like an idiot.

'An idiot in love', his brain thankfully supplied. 'God, stop mooning like a fool!.' 

"Yeah," Lance said with a dejected sigh, "a fool in love with someone that hates them. Why am I so useless?"

He heard the deep purring of Blue when he had finished reprimanding himself, the purr felt like Blues approval of Keith and Lance, and he decided to ignore that as much as he could until he heard a growled reply that said she was not having any of his self doubt right now. He could feel the fond smile on his face and gave her a 'thanks for putting up with my shit' thought and he heard her rumble as though she was laughing.

"What would I do without you, Blue?" He said aloud to himself, not really expecting a reply from her.

"We would always have found each other," she replied, voice smooth and clear in his mind. He was a little taken aback by that, the lions didn't usually have such a clear voice. It made him happy to think they could have full conversations eventually. "We have a strong bond," she continued as Lance finished his dinner and got ready to head back to sleep. "It is the reason we can communicate so clearly to each other."

Lance could tell that Blue was just talking for the fun of it after a while, his eyes were getting heavier as she continued to ramble. Lance smiled, he could tell she was doing it on purpose to help him sleep, and it worked.


	3. The Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting this slightly early, it's also a bit shorter that my other chapters but the next will be longer again.
> 
> Also: Trigger warning is at the end of this chapter.

He could hear the sound of waves crashing down around him but there was no light to see by and the waves never seemed to reach him. He felt around on then ground for something to indicate where he was but it only furthered his confusion. The ground felt like metal, cold and smooth under his fingers, but the waves sounded so close, like at any point they may decide to crash down on him.

"Lance..." The wind whispered his name, he turned around it every direction like he would be able to catch whoever had said it, even in the dark. "Lance..." It came again but it sounded more like fond exasperation. He tried to place the voice on the wind but he couldn't remember ever hearing one like this before.

"Who are you?!" Lance shouted as the wind seemed to pick up and with it it brought in some light. His vision was blurry to start with, trying to adjust to the now lit room, but as soon as his eyes come to focus he started looking around frantically.

He was in some weird room that at first glance looked to be a plain metal cube, it was empty except for what looked like detritus along every wall. That's when he noticed the walls. They looked like floor to ceiling windows or a TV or something, Lance couldn't quite tell, though it looked like it was playing a movie and that's where the sound of crashing waves came from. The waves were crashing against the walls/windows and with every crash more debris fell around the edge of the room. Lance was still looking in awe when the voice decided to finally reply.

"I am no one." The voice answered.

"Ha, ha, very funny." Lance said, remembering he'd asked it a question with a frown forming on his face. "If you don't want to answer, then show yourself."

As if that was all the voice needed, it materialised near Lance, only an arm's reach away, startling him into fumbling backward until he got his bearings. The figure smirked at him, one that seemed familiar somehow but Lance couldn't place it. The person looked scruffy, like he had live outside of society for a long time, he's hair was long, fringe covering his nose only just allowing his mouth to remain exposed, his skin was dark, darker then Lance's, like he had been in the sun way too much, his hair was white, like an old man's or Allura's, and his clothes where tattered as well as looking like dirt had worked its way in too much to be able to ever remove it. Over all he looked homeless.

"Will you tell me who you are?" Lance asked, he didn't really expect an answer but that wasn't going to stop him from asking.

"You will learn of my identity in time." The man answered.

"Great, your being all cryptic," Lance said as he rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. "I'm not going to get anything out of you, am I?" 

The man just looked at him silently, a smile slowly creeping on to his face. The man opened his mouth slowly, it was such a strange sight the Lance didn't notice at first. Lance took his eyes off the old man to examine the room only to find that the walls/windows had cracked and was now letting in water. Lance turned back to the man only to see him de-materialise on him.

"Of course you're going to leave me to drown!" Lance shouted as he started to panic slightly. Wouldn't it be ironic, dying by drowning when he was the blue paladin. The water continued to move higher up his body, lapping at his calves, pushing at his hips, knocking the air from his lungs. There just wasn't anything he could do in this sort of situation, other than sit and wait, or more accurately float and wait.

His mind drifted to the team, he was going to miss them but he knew they'd be able to continue without him. He would miss Blue but he knew the lion wouldn't be alone for long and that made him smile. Even if he might not be around for his team they would be able to continue to fight and with a different paladin piloting Blue they might actually win. He would miss that he never got to go back to earth and see his family, they wouldn't know what he's done and they would probably always think he died in the desert or something. So it wouldn't be much different then, he thought as the last of the metal cube filled with water.

His lungs burned as he held his breath, he knew it was only a matter of time before he let his last bit of air go. But he'd be damned if he didn't give it his all. He might accept that he was gonna die but he would be as difficult as he could beforehand. He could feel the need to take a gulp of air become almost unavoidable and as he did he felt the suffocating water flood his systems. As his eyes finally blurred before finally going black, he could have sworn he had felt Blues reassuring and comforting growl in the back for his mind.

~~~

Lance awoke coughing up water. He could feel himself shivering and he stared down at his hands to watched them shake. Was he alive? Was that a dream? Or is he in the afterlife now?

He put his hands back down along his side's and felt his fingers hit sand. Sand? He looked around him now that he didn't think he was dying and found a very familiar looking beach. The beach his family would always go to. He could feel his tears stream down his face, he was home.

"Not quite." That same voice as the old man said startling Lance out of his reminiscing.

"What do you mean 'not quite'!" Lance shouted, he was really getting sick of this man.

"I mean," the man stated with gritted teeth before drawing out a long sigh. "I mean, that you will never be able to return to this home."

Lance just sat on the sand as the man made his way over toward the sea. Lance could make out what looked like an escape pod sink into the wave of the ocean, never to be seen again. It was eerily similar to the pods back on the castle ship and for some odd reason it made his stomach twist.

"Why?" Lance said, small and broken at the idea of never getting to see his family again.

"I could give you many reasons," the man said as he made his way back toward Lance, placing his hand on Lance's shoulder, "but I'll only give you one." He crouched down to Lance's eye level, though it had little effect with all the old man's hair in the way, " you have a new family, Lance, and this new family of yours needed you to help protect it."

Lance just scoffed lightly, tears still running down his face with the thought of his family. Voltron didn't need him though, no one really needed him. He felt his heart squeeze with the depressing thought, making the tear fall heavier. No one would ever need him, he realised.

He felt a sharp slap across his face and imidietly looked back toward the man, his hand was raised and by the look of his mouth he was frowning. Lance could only look at him with a shocked expression, he was pretty sure he hadn't said any of that out loud.

"More people need you then you might realise, Lance," the man said with a growl to his voice. His anger shocked Lance more than the statement did at first then his mind caught up and he realised the man had somehow read his thoughts. He wanted the statement to be true but he knew better. The old man gave a sigh of defeat as he turned to the sea where the pod had been, "you'll come to realise I'm right in time." The man whispered before vanishing altogether.

Lance stared out at the familiar sea. This must me a memory of home, he thought sadly. He really wished that someday he would return but somehow the old man's words just seemed all to truthful, like he knew Lance wouldn't be able to return. The why of his inability to go home scared him a little, so many possibilities and he couldn't stop himself from thinking them.

Lance watched as the sun rose in its golden glory, bathing Lance in more warmth then he had felt all night. As the last days of sunlight broke the horizon he could feel himself fall, it confused him until his eyes closed and all he could feel was at peace.

~~~

As Lance woke up the next morning he felt even more sluggish and slow then he had the night before, everything seemed to ache in some way. He couldn't remember most of his weird dream, only the feeling of never returning home. The image of a strange man that kind of felt familiar but he didn't know how that was possible was the only other thing he could remember. He didn't like the feeling the dream left him so his mind wondered elsewhere.

God, he'd almost forgotten about last night and his face heated at the memory of embarrassing himself multiple times. Nope not doing it, he thought to himself, stretching and getting out of bed, ignoring the part of his brain that wanted to relive the torture that was last night. He had stuff that needed to be done today and he had already put off talking to Allura for long enough but first he needed to be more awake for that conversation.

He got into his now washed bodysuit and headed to the training deck, he might hate morning training but he was so used to it now, that it made it hard to wake up fully without doing it. Training had pretty much become an equivalent to Earth coffee. He was not ever going to be having space coffee again, especially after what happened last time. So with that in mind Lance headed to the training deck with aching bones and muscles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for drowning but no actual death occurs. Lance is only dreaming through this chapter.


	4. Morning coffee...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Homework is a killer I SWEAR!!!!  
> If there is any mistakes, I'm sorry, it hasn't been edited that great this week.

When Keith awoke the next morning he lay in bed for a few doboshes, just thinking. Lance seemed a bit off to him yesterday and it made the red paladin a bit concerned. Even small stuff like this could cause problems to Voltron and that should be everyone's concern. It wasn't that Keith was, maybe, watching Lance a little closer then he usually would, it was that it should be obvious that Lance was acting a little odd. Even if both Shiro and Hunk had told him that Lance wasn't acting any different than usual, Keith could tell he was. He just didn't know what to do with this information.

Keith finally jumped from his bed, donning his suit and retrieving his dagger from its hiding place, eventually making his way to the training deck. He stretched lightly as he made his way down the hall. He was almost positive that he would be the first one there, he usually was. Though today was a little different.

As he made his way through the door he could see that today be wouldn't be the first to arrive. He could see Lance already stretching his ridiculously long legs, it almost looked like he was doing the splits from the angle Keith was standing. He didn't realise he had been staring for some time until a hand clasped his shoulder and made him jolt with shock. It was rare for anyone to sneak up on him.

"See something you like?" Shiro whispered in his ear with a wide smirk on his face.

Keith schooled his expression so Shiro wouldn't know how right he was and glared back as he made his way further into the room. Shiro just rolled his eyes but the smirk didn't leave his face as he followed after Keith. Keith avoided eye contact with both paladins as he went through his normal routine.

He was halfway through when he heard Lance snickering. He turned toward the blue paladin with a curious but confused expression that only caused Lance to out right laugh, confusing Keith further. Lance's continual laughter was causing Keith to become more and more irritated he longer Lance couldn't seem to stop. Lance had tears in his eyes from his laughter and Keith just didn't know what to do.

"What is wrong with you?!" Keith shouted over Lance's laughter, which only caused it to increase further. "That's it!" Keith shouted before tackling Lance to the ground and winding him as they both fell to the ground with a loud thud.

~~~

Shiro couldn't help the wince that crossed his face as Keith tackled Lance to the ground. If he'd been quicker he could have prevented this from happening at all. Shiro knew all to well that catching Keith would have been quite difficult, he was fast and slippery when he was determined, Shiro had made a lot of attempts over the years. The score was something like; Keith 87: Shiro 3. Nevertheless, Shiro was nothing if not just as determined as Keith was.

He could hear Lance's breath leave him as he fell onto the ground, hard. He moved his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, Keith should have known better than to let his anger take control of him and Shiro knew he would have to reprimand Keith for it. 'patience young paladin', Shiro thought to himself, laughing internally.

"Keith," Shiro said in a stern voice, then let out an exasperated sigh. He'd noticed Lance gasping for breath and knew he had been winded. Shiro moved over to the pair to make sure that Lance was alright and that when he was he wouldn't be trying to kill Keith as repayment. "You alright, Lance?"

He could see the water running down Lance's face from his tears. After a few ticks he was finally able to take a proper breath. Shiro sat there on the ground with Lance while he caught his breath again, to make sure that he wasn't in any other pain. Shiro scanned the boys face for any visible signs of discomfort, as Lance was still gasping for breath and didn't have his voice. When Lance didn't show any discomfort Shiro checked over his body for anything that the boy might not yet have noticed. He was happy to found nothing obviously wrong.

"What the fuck, Keith?!" Lance yelled indignantly when he was no longer winded, he jumped up quickly to stare down at Keith angrily. "Did you really have to wind me?!"

Shiro let out a quiet sigh and prayed that this wasn't going to turn into a fight, he knew it would be pointless but he prayed anyway. He really hoped for once that Keith would be able to keep his mouth shut. When has he ever been that lucky though, however he could always hope.

"Well," Keith started. Shiro just stood there with his fingers squeezing the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to stay calm and not shout and send them both to their rooms, "if you weren't acting like a crazy person, then maybe I wouldn't have to!"

"Keith!" Shiro reprimanded, there was only so much he could take, but he needed to keep a level head. "I think you both need to cool off." Shiro pointed to either end of the training deck, watching as both paladins just continued to stare aggressively at each other. "Now!"

Keith tsked then headed toward the fighting simulator and started the gladiator up. Shiro didn't say anything about the way Keith went straight back to some sort of fight just to cool down from a previous one. He'd done it that way since Shiro had know him. Shiro just shook his head as he turned to face Lance. Lance on the other hand seemed incapable of moving away from a fight and just stood there with his arms crossed. Shiro let out a world weary sigh, today would be a long day.

~~~

Pidge sat back against the wall with her computer and Hunk as the rest of the boys trained. She didn't find the excessive amount of training they did to be of any benefit to her, she mainly dealt with programming, which she was currently trying to do even with the distractions. Her programs had so far been a god sent for the other paladins, and Pidge herself, if she was being honest. There was just no way she would be trying to learn Altean again through that stupid program Allura had tried to make them attempt. Most of the paladins self-preservation was better than that, other than Keith's but even he didn't try it anymore since Allura had banned him from fighting the thing.

"Do you think Lance is acting a bit weird?" Hunk asked, pulling Pidge from her thoughts.

Pidge shrugged, she hadn't really been paying attention to any of the paladins lately, "What do you mean?"

Hunk shrugged as well, Pidge could tell he was just trying to appear less concerned then he really was, "He just seems a bit slow to me today, and he's missed quite a few easy shots too."

Pidge raised her brow at Hunk because, yeah, Lance missing targets, especially easy ones, hasn't been much concern lately. Pidge would almost agree with Lance anytime he would say he's the teams sharpshooter but it would go to his head and Pidge has never really been one for encouragement. So for him to be missing targets it did seem strange, though Lance could be doing it on purpose. No one really could understand what was happening in the blue paladins brain at the best of times.

Pidge decided to put a hold on her programming and watch Lance instead, if he was missing targets then Pidge wanted to know why.

She watch as another plate was tossed in the air for Lance to shoot. It should have been an easy shot, most of the paladins could have probably made it but Lance didn't. She saw him draw his Bayard up and aim it toward to plate, however he just seem to freeze after that. As the plate fell to the ground Pidge and Hunk jumped at the noise the plate made but Lance still stood frozen in place, his eyes looked glazed over and he seemed to be swaying slightly.

"Hunk?" Pidge spoke as softly as she could, it seemed to snap the yellow paladin out of his gaping and he raced toward Lance without a word.

Pidge got up as well, making her way over toward the two. Lance still seemed to be in this dazed like state causing Hunk to hover closely but not touch him, fearing that it would cause harm to his friend. Pidge could hear the sounds of Shiro and Keith's fight start to dwindle at the sound of a frantic Hunk.

"Pidge," Hunk said, sounding desperate, "what do we do?"

"What are we doing?" They heard Lance answer and both paladins whipped their heads back to Lance. He stood in all his usual glory, tall, confident, and arrogant, it was like the complete opposite of what they saw only a couple of ticks ago. Lance moved toward them, wrapping his arms around each paladin and squeezing their shoulders. " I thought you guys were taking a break?" Lance asked with a tilt of his head to each of them.

"We were," Pidge replied, voice dripping with annoyance now that Lance seemed perfectly fine, "until a certain blue paladin decided to take a break in the middle of his training."

Lance eyed Pidge incredulously for a dobosh before shrugging and turning to Hunk. "Hey buddy, do you think it's breakfast time yet?"

Hunk chuckled at his friends antics, at least Lance seemed fine now, and smiled before replying. "Yeah I Hunk we should have breakfast, I'm starving."

Lance laughed as he pulled his friends along with him toward the kitchen, "Me too, buddy. Keith, Shiro, you gonna join us?"

"We'll be there in a few." Shiro replied before attacking Keith again. It was obvious to Pidge that this extra bit of training was more for Keith than for Shiro. Keith seemed to always have way too much energy. Even if she knew he slept about as much as she did, which was hardly at all.

At the thought of sleeping Pidge felt as though she was missing something. Looking around she spotted her computer and squirmed her way out of Lance's arm, causing the boy to look at her with hurt eyes. She rolled hers in reply before heading over to grab her computer, she could not believe it took her this long to realise that her laptop wasn't in her current possession. Maybe she had a heart after all, the idea made her chuckled quietly to herself as she made her way to follow the others for breakfast. Sure morning training was annoying but it was good at waking the paladins up at least. Maybe Lance just didn't get enough sleep, Pidge thought to herself as she set down on the kitchen table with her laptop, he did seem like he was falling asleep in training. She could ask Hunk to enquire about it, she knew she wouldn't be doing it herself, but she also had a new program she was trying to write and immediately got stuck into it.

Pidge felt a tap on her shoulder and looked over to see who it was. Lance had sat next to her and held a plate of food goo towards her.

"Eat up sunshine!" Lance said with a large smile on his face.

Pidge narrowed her eyes suspiciously at Lance. "What did you do to it?" 

Lance scoffed and placed the food by Pidge's laptop before turning toward his own half eaten food. "Nothing." Lance said with a pout and pushed his food around his plate.

Pidge was still suspicious but she had a bit of a soft spot for pouting paladins, Hunk used it all to often to his advantage. "Fine." Pidge sighed before taking the first bite. Weirdly it tasted pretty great like different earth fruit, or what Pidge thought she remembered of what earth fruit tasted like.

Lance just smiled as Pidge continued to shovel food into her mouth then stopped to look at him. "Why did you bring me food?"

"We've got the discussion from yesterday's battle in like ten doboshes." Lance said with a shrug of his shoulders before lifting his plate and disposing of the half eaten food there.

That seemed odd to Pidge, Lance was usually one to finish his food first. Both Hunk and Lance had some weird obsession about it, Pidge swears they do. She thought that maybe she needed to start writing a list of all the weird stuff Lance has done so far today to give to Hunk. Personally she had no idea what to do with this information but Hunk might.

Pidge watched Lance leave for the bridge while she finished her last few mouthfuls of food goo. She grabbed her laptop, she wasn't about to forget it a second time in one day, and headed to the bridge herself. She could see that Shiro was there talking with Allura already, that didn't really surprise anyone, but she couldn't see Hunk and Coran.

She went and stood over by Keith and Lance as she waited for Coran and Hunk to reappear. It always seemed strange to her that the red and blue paladins had a supposed rivalry and hated one another but they were almost always together. They stood next to each other in almost every discussion and would usually be training together too. The only time they seemed to be separate is when Lance was with Hunk or herself and Keith was with Shiro. There might be something going on between the two but Pidge just couldn't understand it.

Pidge turned to the sound of the door opening bringing Hunk and Coran onto the bridge. Coran didn't seem right but Pidge couldn't place it. She might be smart but visual health signs and the like were not her thing, biology just didn't quite make sense to her yet. It was also notably harder to learn something like biology when there were so many different planets and species to learn as well as languages and being able to continue to hack the Galra. Though Pidge had a list and she would be damned if she didn't learn everything she had on it.

"What's up, Coran?" Pidge asked as he moved closer. She watched as he swayed slightly with each step before crumbling onto the floor. Pidge felt herself freeze because that was not something she had been expecting. She felt Lance and Keith rush passed each of her shoulders, Lance knocking her very slightly. It was at the moment that Pidge felt incredibly dumb. She couldn't move and even if she wanted to she didn't know what she could do or what help she could give. It was a horrible feeling.

"Allura?" Pidge heard Shiro call. She turned around to find the Altean princess in the same state, both passed out on the floor and everyone too shocked to do anything.

"We should take them to the infirmary," Pidge said quietly when she finally got her voice back, she definitely sounded her age at the moment, "we can figure out what's wrong there."

Shiro looked up at Pidge and gave a small smile and a nod of thanks, Pidge didn't like that she was thanked for the obvious but knew Shiro didn't see it that way.

"Alright Hunk, carry Coran to the infirmary and get him into one of the healing pods, I'll bring Allura." Shiro said calmly as he gave out orders, Pidge thought he seemed a little freaked out but didn't quite understand the look on his face. "Lance, can you and Keith run ahead and get two pods set up for us?"

Pidge thought the last once had been a question but Lance and Keith had all but raced out as soon as Shiro had finished. Pidge knew that at the moment she was worthless, she wasn't fast like Lance and Keith and she wasn't strong enough to carry a person, all she could do is wait for the Altean's to be in the pods and help Hunk analyse the data.

She trudged after Shiro as he made his way from the bridge and didn't look up when he nudged her arm. "We'll figure this out," he said softly like it was the best kind of encouragement ever, " and I know things will turn out fine."

Hunk slowed slightly as if he had heard the conversation. "We'll figure this out, Pidge," Hunk said with a large cheeky smile, "I mean who else would be able to if not you and me."

"Too true, my man," Pidge said punching Hunk in the arm which caused him to whine dramatically. Pidge laughed a little at Hunk antics, because yeah if anyone would figure this out it would be Pidge.


	5. A Sickness Takes

Lance watched as they placed Coran and Allura into the healing pods, he knew it would take some time for the results to come back but it felt wrong to just leave them there.

"Without the princess, we're pretty much defenceless." Lance thought to himself as he watched the pods descend. He hadn't realised that he room had become quite as he continued to think out loud without knowing that he was. "I wonder if this is the Galra's doing."

"It might be." Pidge said behind him, breaking him out of his thoughts and causing him to jump as Pidge place a hand on Lance's shoulder. She stared forward as she continued. "I'll figure this out, Lance."

"I know you will, Pidgey." Lance turned to her with a smile before grabbing her around the waist and hoisting her up like a toddler. Lance could only give her a quick squeeze of a hug before she squirmed too much to hold up safely. He dropped her quickly but carefully as no one ever wanted a vengeful Pidge after them, Lance knew that all too well, before he was bounding away laughing manically.

"I will get you for that, McClain!" Pidge shouted out the door as Lance ran down the hallway toward the bridge again.

Lance didn't quite know why he headed for the bridge but it just seemed right somehow. As he got there he sat down in his seat and activated the program that would tell hem when ships were nearby. He couldn't tell what kind of ships they were from his console it was a two person job unless you were Allura, which Lance wasn't, but at least he would know when some kind of ship was close. He was thinking of a way to run around all the consoles before the mechanical whoosh distracted him and he looked up.

Shiro was standing in the doorway shaking his head lightly. It made Lance furrow his brow in confusion. "What are you shaking you're head for?"

Shiro didn't answer just shrugged and made his way over to Lance to like over his shoulder. Shiro nodded before heading to his own console and starting it up. Lance couldn't quite see Shiro's screen from here but he did notice the start up picture looked a lot like a certain space Princess he knew.

"Do you seriously have Allura as your home screen?" Lance really wanted to know. By the blush on the back of Shiro's neck he was 100% correct. "No worries man, I have Keith as mi-"

Lance froze when he realised what he had just said, usually he was so good at keeping these things secret but apparently he couldn't anymore. He watched Shiro with wide eyes as he swivelled in his chair to face Lance, eyes just as wide and face with the same shocked expression.

"...Really?" Shiro whispered like it was a great conspiracy and talking to loud could get him killed. Lance just stared, he had just admitted to Shiro, Keith brother pretty much, that he had a thing for the mullet-ed man, what could you even say to that? Lance opened his mouth, denial, he was meant to go for denial, but sounds seemed to have failed him as well. 

Thankfully Hunk arrived, ready to break the weird staring contest between the paladins.

"Do you think it could be a cold or something, I could make them a food goo soup for when they wake up?" Hunk started to sound panicked as he pace back and fourth behind Lance's chair. "Oh, god, what if they don't wake up? What if this thing kills them? Sure we can form Voltron but we can't move the ship at all without Allura!"

Lance jumped from his chair and intercepted his friends pacing. He placed a hand on each shoulder and looked right into the big guys eyes. "A small sickness isn't going to kill the Princess, or Coran, they're too tough for that and you know it." Lance could see his friend shaking slightly and gave him a tight hug. "I think they would both love some soup when they wake up."

Hunk moved back from the embrace after a dobosh but Lance only let go when he could feel his friend wasn't shaking anymore. They smiled at each other before Lance shooed Hunk away. "Now get to making some amazing soup, buddy." Lance beamed as he slapped Hunk on the arse and giggled as Hunk made a sound of protest.

"Really, Lance?" Hunk asked exasperatedly as he made his way to the door.

"What?" Lance said mock offended, "I'm just showing my appreciation for some fine behind."

Hunk just laughed as he exited the room leaving Lance to once again face Shiro. He hoped Shiro would drop it but wasn't sure if he was ever lucky enough for that to happen.

"So," Shiro started, causing Lance to groan as he took his seat again, at least Shiro wasn't looking his way. "Are there any ships around that your scans have picked up yet?"

Okay, Lance was not expecting Shiro to brush it off like that but he guessed it had something to do with Allura, so maybe he was safe. "Nothing so far, thankfully." After that the two sat it silence while watching for any possible enemy ships to come by.

~~~

Pidge read and re-read the healing pods results. It baffled her as to how they both came down with a common Altean flu. She remembered Coran having a very long one-sided conversation with her about the 'spectacular' filtration system, that the Castle ship supposedly had, when she had concerns about space viruses and bacteria that could harm the Earthlings. She had left it alone because of Coran's confidence in the system but now she kind of wished she'd a least had a quick look, figure out how it works. Because now she had to do that and it was at such a critical time. Just the thought of it pissed her off.

She stormed out of the infirmary and headed to the systems room, where Coran usually worked if he wasn't in the infirmary. It wasn't a long walk but it did help her to cool off slightly. There was no point in being mad for past mistakes and she could still correct this one. As she reached the systems room a thought occurred to her. She wondered if she'd be able to find the viruses origin, it had to be from something that they had brought in and it might still be swimming, figuratively, in the virus still. Pidge thought if anyone could do something impossible like this then it would be her. 

Pidge pulled up her computer as well as the likely software the castle systems had for scanning an entire ship and checked if it would work for finding a virus. It took a bit of fiddling and coding to work it in her favour but eventually Pidge got it working. Only problem was that the program was slow and speeding it up would potentially miss what she wanted. She set the program to start, linking it to her computer so she wouldn't have to come back for the results, and grabbed the information on Altean flu before heading to the kitchen where she knew Hunk was. There wasn't any real point in going back to the infirmary as Allura and Coran would be in there for a while. 

She'd read the information about he flu and hopefully get something out of it while keeping Hunk company. There was a high possibility that the virus wouldn't affect the earthling but she was still going to check. She know that the yellow paladin was more than likely fretting about if it was contagious and if Allura and Coran would be okay, so being able to tell him it was only a flu would definitely help ease his mind a little. She also had two, more solid, theory's about this flu and how it got onto the Castle Ship; either the filtration system had failed greatly for the last couple of days without Coran noticing, or it was a genetically modified virus that had the characteristics of the Altean flu but now could go through filtration without detection. Pidge was leaning more toward the latter but couldn't figure out how someone would be able to do this. Another reason she needed to work on learning as much about biology as possible.

Pidge absently opened the door to the kitchen only to be assaulted by the sound of a extremely loud bang followed by an equally loud crash. She winced as the sounds rang through her ears and stepped into the kitchen to be met with quite the sight.

Hunk was crouched on the ground as he started to pick up what looked like the entire contents from the cupboards. He was sobbing softly to himself and hadn't noticed Pidge was in the room. Pidge cleared her throat audibly, announcing her presence. Hunk startled at the noise which lead to him dropping the pans he had been holding and causing them to crash again. The sound rang through the kitchen, it seemed to reverberate around the now closed room, inducing a grimace from both paladins while they waited for their ears to stop throbbing.

"They've got a flu, Hunk." Pidge said quickly, she could see that they were the right words to say as she watched Hunk visibly relax and move toward her. She knew what was coming but she wanted the comfort as much as Hunk needed it as he drew her into a hug. Hunk always gave the best hugs and she was human enough to admit that, to herself at least.

"Thanks, Pidge." Hunk said as he pulled away to go back to picking up his mess. "I really needed to hear that."

"Glad to be of service," she said with a smile and rolled her eyes. Hunk laughed as he picked up a massive stack of plates, Pidge could never get over how stupidly strong hunk seemed to be, yet he was always just a big softie.

Pidge moved to the only clear chair and wiped the table down with a random rag she found there. She set up her computer with the notes of Altean flu and put them through her translated program, turning toward want Hunk was doing while she waited.

"What were you doing before I got here?" Pidge said resting her elbows on the table so she could rest her head on the hands.

"I was making soup but ..." Hunk paused to gesture around himself, "I got a bit annoyed when I thought I couldn't find one of my utensils, turns out it was on the bench and apparently I'm blind." Hunk laughed, then pointed at the utensil that sat by itself on the kitchen counter.

"Yeah I think all of us are a bit stressed at the moment." Pidge said absently, she didn't like to admit it but out of everyone Hunk was probably the easiest to talk to.

Hunk nodded along as he picked up more kitchen stuff, Pidge wasn't sure what half of the things Hunk was putting away did, let alone their names.

"You know," Hunk started as he continued to put his mess away, "I think the only one not stressing is probably Keith." Pidge laughed at that which made Hunk look up from over the kitchen counter. He gave her a confused frown as he stood up from crouching and crossed his arms defensively. "What?!"

"Keith is like the worst worry wort in the universe when it comes to the people in this Castle, Hunk." Pidge said with confidence, it had been almost a year since leaving earth and her and Keith had become almost best friends. They had both been less than verbal at the start, but then on one particularly annoying day both of them had ranted to each other about how insufferable Lance had been. Since then they would talk to each other about concerns and the like, Pidge really appreciated their friendship greatly.

"How... How do you know that?" Hunk asked still confused.

"It's called talking, Hunk," Pidge said through a laugh. "And trying to escape Lance."

"Ah." Was all Hunk said before returning to cleaning, Pidge could tell he understood the need to escape Lance at times. Admittedly the times have become less from his annoying behaviour and more his general talking. Sometimes Pidge just couldn't help but listen to his stories, she conceded that they were good however distractions when she was coding could, and have been, a bit hazardous. She didn't always understand why Keith would hide now, he and Lance hardly fought anymore and seemed to get along quite well, but occasionally he could come to their little hideout red faced and refusing to talk. That was happening more and more often and it was something Pidge had thought to ask, maybe.

A ring on her computer let her know the translation had completed and she started to look over the notes. She skimmed them quickly, trying to pinpoint any useful information.

She came across things like: Altean flu is very quick acting, no visible symptoms occur until the last half hour of gestation. Symptoms include; sweating, paleness, followed by shortness of breath. As the last of the symptoms occur the Altean will go into a coma like state. This state will only last up to two full days but no longer than three. Once recovered from the coma the Altean will be dizzy and overly joyful for the next few hours. The Altean will be unable to contract the flu for another year after the virus has left their system.

Pidge could feel Hunk reading over her shoulder, usually it would bother her but she knew she wouldn't be able to stop the anxious boy. Pidge read through the notes one last time just to double check but there just wasn't anything about a cure, which annoyed her. What made her feel better though is the fact it seemed that this kind of flu wouldn't be able to affect the humans on board, or the certain half breed, which made her shoulders relax some of the tension that she, apparently, had.

"So they'll wake up in two to three days?" Hunk asked, obviously wanting another opinion.

"Yeah," Pidge said with a sigh, "now we just need to survive those days."

"What?!" Hunk screeched so suddenly Pidge flailed in fright, hitting Hunk in the face with one of her wayward hands. They both groaned as pain shot though them.

"Shit, Hunk!" Pidge said turning to him with an angry glare. *At least he has the decency to look skittish*, she thought. She took a breath and continued the thoughts she had started to voice earlier. "Without Allura we can't move, if we can't move and the Galra come then we have to fight them, and keep the Castle from taking too much damage."

"Oh, at least we can still form Voltron," Hunk smiled, he was trying to think positive at least, "because it's an Altean only virus right."

"Yup," Pidge said, popping the 'p' for fun. They could breath a bit easier at the moment. All they needed now was to figure out where the virus had come from. As if the universe wanted to laugh at Pidge, her computer came back with another ping as the results for the virus location loaded up. Yup the universe was laughing alright.

"Wait, what?!" Hunk said disbelievingly.

"Our latest Galra battle." Pidge said as if that was all the information they both needed for them to know exactly where the virus had come from, and it was. "The virus was on the blue lion."


	6. Unexpected

Lance paced back and forth as he listened to Pidge. She had told them already that Hunk had stayed in the kitchen, as he knew everything already, and there was little he could contribute to this particular discussion. Hunk was however listening in on the Castle comms, just in case.

"The virus was on the blue lion," Pidge said to Shiro and Lance. Lance stopped his pacing and stared wide-eyed at Pidge, because WHAT! How was some alien virus on Blue.

"What did Lance do now?!" Keith scoffed as he entered he bridge, everyone could tell he was high strung with what had happened in such a short time. All Lance could see was red.

"Me! I didn't do anything!" Lance shouted in Keith's face.

"Oh yeah, that sounds like you," Keith said rolling his eyes and crossing his arms while leaning into Lance's space, "doing nothing when you should be doing something."

Lance was ready to punch the red paladin, hard. He was only just stopped by Shiro's Galra arm before he could make his move.

"Keith!" Shiro's voice boomed over everyone making the room really quiet. "It was NOT Lance's fault."

Keith just scoffed again, turning away so he wasn't facing either paladin. "Sure it isn't." Keith said only loud enough for Lance to hear.

"You know what, screw you, mullet!" Lance shouted.

He wasn't going to take this anymore, least of all from Keith. Lance stormed out of the bridge heading in a random direction before he began thinking of a secluded area he could hide and sulk in. He knew everywhere was kind of empty at the moment, so he headed to one of the observation decks. Running as fast as he could to get some of the anger out of his system. It worked for a little while as it cause him to think of the slight burn in his lungs instead of the ache in his heart.

Stupid Keith and his stupid mullet, Lance thought grabbing some blankets and pillows from one of the linen cabinets within the observation deck. He made himself a small nest out of them and covered himself almost completely. He could feel the ache in his heart and it made him want to cry. I'm not gonna cry, he thought to himself, why should I cry for a stupid crush when said crush still hates me.

Lance sighed heavily and he hugged one of his pillows close to his chest. He felt like the flood gates had opened and realised, belatedly, that he was indeed crying. It wasn't just for Keith though, thinking of him and heart ache just reminded Lance of his homesickness and he couldn't stop then thinking of his family.

His family that probably thought he was dead. Lance knew it was probably better for them to think that then to be searching for him. They'd never be able to actually find him, earth just didn't have the technology needed to be able to find him.

Lance felt like he was lost at sea, the stars different to the ones he had grown up with, as he stared out of the observation window. He thought back to that time, almost a year ago now, when he met Blue. He felt her rumble and smiled sadly to himself. He knew this was his kind of destiny, or whatever; but sometimes he really wished he hadn't followed Keith, hadn't gone into the cave, hadn't knocked on the blue lions shield.

"You can't deny fate," he heard Blue speak. "Even if it hadn't happened that way, it would have still happened, somehow."

Lance let out a long sigh and admitted that Blue was right. "Doesn't mean it doesn't suck, though." Lance said getting comfortable in his nest. He didn't want to think at the moment and decided to stare at the unfamiliar stars.

Lance watched as the stars twinkled every colour he could think of, they looked like jewels shining on a dark satin cloth. He thought of how bizarre his life had become, floating in space, in a castle that was also a ship, it all seemed so odd at the beginning but now he was just so used to it that nothing seemed to faze him anymore. 

His thoughts shifted as he pulled the blankets further around himself. It felt like the cold of space was seeping into his skin, slowing him down, making him feel empty. An emptiness formed from lonely, bitter feeling that created holes inside of him where his earth friends and family once filled. 

He missed all his family, he missed earth, the blue sea, the chill of the rain, the delicious food, the gorgeous sunsets. Everything was just so different in space and even going to so many planets and experiencing so many different things meant nothing to him compared to what they had left behind on earth.

And his family here, on the Castle ship, what did they think of him. He knew Keith hated him, Pidge tolerated him, Hunk just learned to lived with his 'annoyingness', Shiro acted like a dad but didn't love them like a dad would, Allura only needed him to form Voltron, and Coran didn't seem to care either way.

Lance knew his thought were at a bad place but he felt stuck. He was so deep in his thoughts that he didn't hear the mechanical sound of the door opening or the concerned sounds of his fellow paladin. All he could hear was the fake voices of the people he loved telling him lies.

~~~

"Lance!" Keith called, relieved, from the doorway after spotting the blue paladin and waited for him to respond. He had wanted to apologise for what he'd said earlier, but didn't want to corner Lance to do it. Sometimes the blue paladin needed room and Keith was okay giving it to him if he needed. He watched as Lance made no motion to get up or respond, he only continued to stare out into space, "Lance?" His voice sounding a lot more concerned as he made his way to him, "Lance, are you ignoring me? Lance?"

Lance didn't respond, which was a cause of concern, the usually loud boy was unusually quiet, it made Keith unnerved in a way he hadn't felt in many months. He thought touching Lance might break him out of whatever thoughts he was obviously stuck in, so Keith reached out to grab at Lance's shoulder triggering Lance to jump slightly and turn his head toward the hand on his shoulder. Lance followed the appendage up to Keith face as Keith repressed a shiver at he sight of Lance's eyes. His usually bright and mischievous eyes looked up at Keith with a blankness he has only ever seen on the dead, unseeing and cold.

"Lance," Keith waited for a response, however Lance just continued to stare blankly at him, "are you alright? I'm sorry abo- ."

Before Keith could finish, he watched as Lance's eyes started to roll as he started to fall backwards. Keith's grip on Lance's shoulder tightened to prevent Lance from hitting the ground. Keith lowered Lance the rest of the way and stood up, he could feel a bit of panic raise in himself as he paced slightly next the Lance's prone form. At least he knew Lance was alive, he could see Lance's chest moving as he took on air. Keith stopped to take a breath before calling Shiro over the comms to meet him at the infirmary, Shiro was asking why but Keith just left the comms unit to move back toward Lance.

Keith looked down at the boy, sprawled out all across the floor and tangled up in a heap of blankets and pillows. Where did he even get these?, Keith thought to himself as he tried to extract Lance from his blanket bonds.

"You just have to be difficult, don't you?" He said his thoughts out loud, a fond smile crossing his face as he attempted to remove more of the blankets. Once Lance was free Keith's expression soured, his heart dropped as he thought of their last conversation.

"I'm really sorry for before," he just about whispered, as he picked up Lance's dead weight. Carrying him like a princess, Keith'd have to tell him once Lance wakes up to make him laugh about it, though all Keith could think was that he was holding him like he was a precious jewel. And to Keith he was. "You know I didn't mean it, right?"

Keith knew he doubted his own words, he knew Lance was sensitive with this kind of thing and Keith knew he had probably just destroyed their friendship with his words. Keith was never good with words but this just took the cake, didn't it. He sighed and made his way to the infirmary, hopefully it was nothing too serious.

As Keith held Lance he could feel the uncharacteristically hot temperature Lance's body was emitting, even through their layers of clothes, and it grew hotter the longer he held the boy. It didn't feel natural for a human and this made Keith speed up his pace. It became almost unbearable to hold Lance as Keith finally made it to the infirmary.

"Keith, what-" Shiro began but was cut of by Keith rushing past him to the healing pods.

"Shiro, he's burning up, help!" Keith placed Lance down by an inactivated healing pod and attempted to remove his jacket. He wasn't having much luck but at least Shiro was activating one of the pods for use so he didn't need to worry about that, thankfully. Keith got Lance's jacket off just as the pod came up from its hiding place and Shiro grabbed Lance under his arms to haul him into the pod. Once he was in both paladins sighed with relief as they watched the pod cool Lance's core temperature down steadily.

"Okay," Shiro said, running a hand through his silver hair, "what happened?"

"I found him, in one of the observation decks, he wasn't responding to me calling him." Keith looked up at Shiro, he had yet to move off the floor, he wasn't sure if his legs could hold him if he stood. "I grabbed his shoulder and he gave me this dead eyed look before fainting."

Shiro hummed, Keith could see the gears working in his adopted brothers head. "I don't think this is what Allura and Coran have, their symptoms were different and it's not something a human can catch, according to Pidge." 

"What about other-"

"You'll be fine, Keith," Shiro cut him off and gave him a reassuring smile, "the flu only effect Altean's. We'll wait until the results are back for Lance and see what we can do from there, but other than that, there's not much we can do at the moment."

Keith moved to stand up just as the ship shook violently, sending him back to the ground. Shiro caught himself on Lance's healing pod instead of falling. When the shaking finally stopped, the shrill sound of the alarms started to blare at them both.

"Oh, fuckin', 'CAUSE!" Keith shouted as he jumped to stand upright, Shiro doing much the same.

"Keith, language!" Shiro yelled, narrowing his eyes at Keith, Keith just glared back before they both started to run down the hallway toward their lions bay. Keith could see Pidge a little ways down, almost at her lion. He couldn't see Hunk but he knew that the kitchen was relatively close to the lions bays and guessed he was already in his lion, probably waiting for Shiro's orders.

Keith could feel Red rumbling at him to 'hurry his arse up!' and he grumbled back about being 'on his way'. She continued to rumble until he was standing in front of her.

"Well girl," he said with a fond and slightly sad smile, "let's kick some enemy Galra butt!"

Keith could feel her purr of response, it was joyous but also had that slightly sad tone to it. He knew what it was, they both loved to fly and fight with Blue and Lance and they both knew they wouldn't be able to today. Keith got into Red and they shot out the bay doors as soon as they were open enough.

Once outside he could see just how many Galra there was. It was a ridiculous amount for the four of them to take on without the use of Voltron or the Castle ship. The damage these guys could do to just the Castle alone left a bitter taste in Keith's mouth. He watched as Shiro was the last to leave the Castle, Keith felt Red speaking but it didn't seem to be for him. As he puzzled over why she would do that he saw a barrier form around the Castle. Keith could tell it wasn't the usual one when he heard the roar from all of the lions.

"Did Lance and Blue just shield the Castle?" Hunk asked in wonder.

"Yeah," Keith let out a breathless reply at the sight, it was probably the biggest barrier any of the lions has ever made. Keith ignored Lance's name though, he knew what that would do to the yellow paladin and right now they needed everyone at the top of their game to defeat the Galra. Red rumbled an agreement at the thought and roared to let him know there was multiple enemy's behind them. Right, the Galra are attacking, Keith thought. He turned his attention away from the ship, it made him feel ten times better to know Lance, Coran, and Allura were be safe in the Castle, so he knew he could take down these Galra no problem.

"Alright, guys," Shiro said confidently, "let's show them what team Voltron can do!"

Yell and cheers filled the comms as the paladin took position moving away from the Castle ship and into the fray of small Galra fighters.

The Galra Battleship could just be seen hiding behind one of the nearby moons but Keith didn't think it was only the one. There was just too many fighters for one Battleship. "I spot one cruiser behind that moon but I don't think it's the only one, so keep a look out!"

"Will do," Pidge replied as she smashed one fighter against two more. It always amazed Keith at how efficient Pidge just had to be.

Keith clawed the fighters that had been attacking Hunk, slicing through the ships metal hull like butter and causing it to explode. The fight continued much like this as fewer and fewer fighters remained. The Battleship was still in commission attacking the Castle but Blue shield was holding strong against the assault. Keith still hadn't seen the second ship but he knew there must have been more than one.

"Shiro," Keith called over the comms, "we need to take this Battleship out!"

"On it," Shiro called back. Keith could see his lion speeding off toward the ship and moved to follow. He didn't quite know how they were going to take down a Battleship that had its own shields and tough armour.

"Pidge, a hand please," Keith said as an idea was forming in his head. Hopefully it would work ... Hopefully."Do you have that EMP thing working?"

"That's not what it's called but it should be working, I just haven't tested it yet." Keith could practically hear the eye roll in her voice. He wanted to laugh but serious situations called for seriousness.

"Well," Keith started before getting distracted by a fighter ramming him, he grunted before taking the fighter out as well as its buddies, "well, can you test it on the Battleship!"

Keith watched as Shiro back away from the Battleship at the sound of Pidge sighing dramatically over the comms. She obviously thought Shiro was at a safe distance as she then shoot something out of her lion at the Battleship.

"If this turns out bad, it's all on you, Kogane." She said before a massive flash of light blinded Keith. He had to blink to clear his vision and even then he could see large black spots in it.

"You couldn't have warned us of possible blinding!" Keith shouted over the comms. A crackling sound accompanied Pidge's voice when she replied.

"I told you, Kogane, it could go wrong." Pidge almost yelled. "And apparently, it's screwed with our comms too, GREAT!"

Keith looked over at he Battleship and was surprised at what he saw. The ship was no longer much of a ship and more like scattered hunks of twisted metal. You couldn't even tell it was once Galra, let alone a Galran Battleship.

"Oh, god, Pidge," Hunk's shaky voice came through, "we did not design it to do that!"

"Holy shit!" Pidge said breathlessly then started laughing so hard Keith could hear her snorting through the comms, "that was a bit excessive, wasn't it."

"You think!" Hunk shouted.

Keith looked around once the sight of the wrecked Galra ship no longer interested him. He realised then that there wasn't any fighters left. He had been sure there was still some but now they were all alone in this area of space. Keith turned back to the Castle and watched as Blue let her shields down for the paladins to return. She must have sensed that it was safe.

"Alright paladins, back to the Castle." Shiro called as he headed there himself. Keith still thought there was another Battleship out there somewhere but it seemed to be hiding and regrouping at the moment so they had sometime before they would get attacked again. Hopefully.


	7. Exhausted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've drawn some art for this chapter and I'm thinking of drawing more for the others as well.  
> I still have no idea how long this is going to be but I hope you're all enjoying it so far.  
> [Sleepy Keith Link](http://riverkaze.tumblr.com/post/173348758322/my-artwork-for-a-fanfic-im-writing-i-cant)

Back in the Castle, Hunk ran immediately to the blue lions bay. It was weird that Lance hadn't been fighting with everyone and he wanted to make sure his friend was okay. He knew Lance was feeling off but not joining a fight was just too odd for his friend to miss, especially if they needed to form Voltron. However, Keith had gotten to the ship first and easily intercepted Hunk on his way to the lions bay. Keith had a weirdly sad look on his face when Hunk turned to face him, questioningly.

"He's not there, Hunk." Keith said quietly, knowing exactly what the yellow paladin wanted to ask, pulling Hunk away by Keith's tight grip on his arm. Hunk wanted to protest, he didn't need to be dragged around, but he was startled that Keith was in anyone's personal space, let alone his. It made Hunk feel strangely concerned for Keith, because he was showing some kind of emotion Hunk hadn't seen before.

Hunk allowed Keith to pull him down the hall towards the infirmary. He furrowed his eyebrows at Keith as they entered, it looked like it always did, as any active pod had descended shortly after the alarms had sounded. He knew Allura and Coran were in two of the pods, though he couldn't remember which ones, it had been too long a quintant and Hunk was really needing to sleep it off.

Hunk heard Pidge and Shiro just outside the door before they entered the infirmary. Keith activated the pods so that they'd all be visible, and moved to step away from Hunk, standing more toward the far wall. Hunk frowned at him before turning his attention to the three active pods.

"Wait, three!" Hunk said before rushing over to them. He could see Allura and Coran in the center pods but the one to the side had an all too familiar face. "Lance!"

Pidge was by his side in an instant looking at Lance through the pod glass. He didn't look all that different from when they had both last seen the paladin but there had to be something wrong for him to be in a pod. He looked over at Pidge who was checking the healing pods control panel. Looking over her shoulder, Hunk could see that it had yet to identify what the problem was. It freaked Hunk out a bit but he also knew that sometimes it took longer for the pod to figure out the problem, especially if it was something the pods system's hadn't encountered before.

"I wish it would go faster!" Pidge said, agitated. She ran her fingers though her short hair and pulled at the ends. Hunk placed his large hand on her shoulder to get her to look up.

"Lance..." Hunk started brokenly, "Lance will be fine." He took a large breath before smiling down at Pidge, hoping that it seemed more sincere than he felt. "You know him, he's the most stubborn person I know," Hunk smirked, "other than you!"

Pidge rubbed her watering eyes and smirked back at Hunk, "You're right, he's one stubborn asshole, isn't he." Pidge said with a laugh as she heard Shiro sigh audibly at her choice of words.

Hunk laughed with her, turning to Lance with a fond smile. He knew Lance would be fine, he always ended up fine, it would just suck not having him around. This would slowly drown Hunk in worry, but he knew Lance the best and the one thing he did know was that he would be fine. Hunk thought for a few more doboshes and believed that life in general was going to be a lot more difficult on team until Lance was awake again. The notion made his gut churn awfully as he stared at Lance though the pod glass.

Wake up soon, buddy, Hunk thought before turning to walk out of the infirmary.

"I'm ... I'm going to do some baking." Hunk said with a bit of a weak smile to everyone. They all knew he was going to be stress baking but it was better than the alternative.

~~~

In the two days it took Allura and Coran to wake up, the castle had become quite the sight. There was little way to describe it other than ... messy. Though that was saying it lightly.

Allura had sat in the infirmary for the last few varga, until the high that accompanied the Altean flu had warn off. Coran was still very much affected by the flu, so Allura decided it was best to leave him there. Escaping as quickly and quietly as Alteanly possible. Once she made her way into the hallway she was extra glad of her decision. Coran is going to have a fit when his himself again, the princess thought as she took a closer look at the ... Mess.

The hallway was covered in what looked like a fine yellow powder, Allura knew this to be something of Hunk's as she liked to watch the paladin cook on occasion. She could see footprints in the powder and wondered how long it had been there. She sighed as she headed for the bridge.

As she had been making her way there, she had wondered where the other paladins where, as well as her mice. The Castle was eerily quiet for the usually rambunctious lot of teens. However, once she was through the bridge doors she noticed a pile of sleeping paladins, her mice sleeping on the very top of them all. The room had been filled with blankets, pillows, bowls of food, and those weird energy drink wrappers they had gotten from one of their allies, littered all across the bridge floor. There was barely any section of floor that wasn't accompanied with something.

Allura coughed, loudly, to hopefully get the sleeping paladins attention. She was successful in waking Shiro and Pidge both shooting upright, at the sound, before stilling. They both looked less awake and more bleary-eyed with the knowledge that Allura wasn't a threat. They swayed slightly before Shiro obviously gave up and fell back to the ground, completely asleep in an instant. Pidge, however, blinked furiously and moved to get up. She tripped on Hunk's sleeping form, not causing the paladin to stir at all, and moved toward the Princess. Pidge crashed into Allura and wrapped her arms around Allura's waist.

"You awake!" Pidge mumbled sleepily into Allura's chest. Allura returned the hug before pulling Pidge back enough that she could ask her a question.

"Pidge, why are you all sleeping in the bridge?" Allura asked softly, assuming Keith was somewhere in the pile and not wanting to wake any of the paladins, whom had had seemingly no sleep lately.

"Gaaallra," Pidge slowly slurred, her head falling backward as her tiredness seemed to catch up with her. 

Pidge attempted to shake the sleepiness from her head when she realised and left Allura's embrace to grab a energy drink packet off the floor. She shoved it toward Allura expectantly and sat down, squinting at Allura from her new position. Allura only then notice Pidge's lack of glasses and realised she wanted Allura to punch the hole for the straw in her drink. Allura did so as she sat down in front of Pidge and handed the drink back. Allura watched as Pidge drank the whole thing before speaking again.

"The Galra have been pretty relentless since you've been out." Pidge said now fully awake. "It became easier to just all be here when they do attack."

"That's not good, how would they know that I was... Out of commission, as you earthlings say." Allura said, smiling slightly.

Pidge returned her smile, Allura knew they all liked it when the Altean's used earth 'lingo'. She watched though as Pidge's smile faulted. "The Galra planned this," she said with a frown, "they had some sort of genetically modified Altean flu that got passed the filtration system. In the last battle with Lance, they shot some weird cloud at Blue... Do you remember that?"

"Yes, Lance's communications were down," Allura frowned as she thought of what Pidge had just said. "What do you mean last battle with Lance?"

Pidge visibly shrunk at the question, her eyes down cast and her shoulders hunching in on her. "He ... He fainted, not long after you and Coran. I don't know what it is though. He was a bit spacey after that battle but it didn't seem like anything big. He seemed fine to me!"

Allura pulled Pidge back into an embrace, the green paladin was obviously distressed about Lance. Allura rocked them back and forth, shushing Pidge to try and calm the girls tears. Pidge sobbed quietly into Allura's chest, too tired to act older than her age and taking in the comfort she had needed for way to long. 

"Pidge?" A voice broke though the girls quiet sobs, reminding both of them that the boys were still in the room. There was a sound of rustling fabric and slight clanging of metal as Keith's head emerged from a pile of blankets. Allura hadn't even seen him there.

"You okay?" Keith asked, opening one eye to inspect the room but not really seeing anything. Pidge snorted into Allura's chest making her look down at the paladin still in her arms. She could tell Pidge was shaking with mirth and she raised an eyebrow and tilt of her head at Pidge in silent question. Pidge just looked back over to Keith who was fast asleep again with his mouth hanging open.

"His bedhead is legendary." Pidge snorted again as one of the mice moved to make a small nest in the mess that was supposedly Keith's hair. The other mice noticed their lack of brethren and joined the one on top of Keith head, not waking the boy at all. Allura couldn't suppress her laughter at the sight and instead laughter alongside Pidge. "I need to take a photo of this!"

Pidge silently got up and moved to her control panel, she grabbed some sort of device and moved back to Allura. "I've had this on me since we left earth," Pidge said as she captured a photo of Keith and the mice, "I don't usually use but I think Lance will be jealous he missed it, when he wakes up."

They smiled at each other before Pidge yawned and stretched where she was, seated next to Allura. "Go back to sleep, Pidge, I'll move the Castle to a more hidden location." 

Pidge just hummed, eyes already shut, and her head pillowed on her arms. Allura got up and make her way as silently as possible to her controls. She checked for nearby Galra and if it was safe to use a wormhole to find shelter, before she set the Castle on a course to small galaxy, with very little life. Less life, usually, meant a lower possibility of running into the Galra, and it was apparent that the paladins needed a lot of rest from these past few quintants.

After notifying Coran and moving the Castle through the worm hole, she took in all her paladins exhausted faces. They were all still in their paladin armour and she knew just how uncomfortable sleeping in that was. She sighed heavily, she felt as though she had failed them all with something as small as a space virus. Any of them could have been killed in these past two days and she would not have known until she awoke. The thought unsettled her as she landed the ship on a planet that disguised the Castle well.

Once landed, she made her way though the sea of sleeping paladins, pillow, blankets, and other objects, moving as silently as possible to get out of the room so as not to wake any of them. She wanted to, to get them showered and into their own beds without their paladin armour, but she knew they needed the rest more and it was more likely that they would just fall asleep in the shower cubicles, anyway.

Allura made her way back down the hall to check on Coran and inform him of the happenings of past two days. She dreaded telling Coran about Lance and the general state everyone was in, they both thought of the paladins as family now. She knew he would feel responsible, she did as well, he always called himself their space uncle and just seeing the paladins in this way was going to break his heart a bit, but he would needed to know. And know everything.

"Ah, Princess," Coran called as soon as Allura entered the room, "I am sorry for my ... Behaviour since waking up."

"It is perfectly alright, Coran,"Allura said with a fond smile, holding up her hand to placate Coran, as he moved to her side. "Now that the castle has landed though I need to tell you some things that have been going on while we have slept."

She gave a sigh as she moved toward the control panel, she felt it was better to show him then try and explain, as she just didn't seem to have the words she needed for this. The panel lit up as she activated Lance's pod, bringing it up from below. She motioned toward it as she checked his vitals and where it said his condition on the screen before furrowing her brows and heading over herself.

"What is wrong?" Coran asked, his question asking both for Lance and the look on Allura's face.

"The pod," she said with a vague wave of her hand at it, "it doesn't say what's wrong with him."

Coran turned more fully to the Princess, a concerned look on his face, "it doesn't say? But it should, should it not? How is he still in there if it cannot identify the problem?"

"I don't know, Coran," she sighed again, wrapping her arms around her as she looked from Coran to Lance. "I guess the only thing we can do is wait and see. I will have to see if Blue is willing to let me pilot her. We must continue our mission, even if Lance is unavailable right now."

Coran nodded and moved to the pods control panel, to see if there was anything that could be done to assist in helping the pod identify the problem. Allura knew it was helpless, she had already checked briefly, but if Coran felt better for checking then she wouldn't say anything against that.

"What of the others?" Coran asked, as he had seemingly gave up on the control panel.

"They are resting on the bridge," Allura replied, turning to make her way out the door, "they have been fighting the Galra, seemingly, non stop since we have slept. I plan to give them a few more varga, before I force them into the showers, then to their own sleeping quarters. And just a warning," Allura turned to face Coran by the infirmary doors, "the Castle is in 'quite' a state, at the moment."

Allura chuckled at the sight of Coran's face softening at the information that the paladins were alright, then grimacing at the knowledge that they were going to be the likeliest to be cleaning the Castle. He let out a small huff and made to follow Allura out of infirmary.

The next few varga were going to be interesting, Allura thought with another sigh.


	8. When You Notice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assignments are killers and I almost didn't get this done in time D:  
> Also thinking of splitting this into a bit of a series because this might have turned out a lot bigger than I originally planned. ^^;

Okay, it had been almost a full movement since Allura had awoken from the healing pod and she was furious, frustrated, fuming. The pods seemed to be malfunctioning, Lance's healing pod had stored itself and would no longer appear when requested, and no one seemed to be listening to her, especially a certain lion. 

She had tried to communicate with Blue, tried to get her to respond in any way and all Blue did was refuse her. It was getting ridiculous, they needed to be protecting the galaxy and the Blue lion was being stubborn. It was a trait that was not usual for Blue and it concerned Allura, but not as much as it had infuriated her.

After Allura had tried for the sixth quintant in a row, the blue lion had seen fit to activate her shield. Even if, much later, Allura felt like a kid for it, she had kicked the sheild as hard as she could, ignoring the throbbing in her foot, then punched the shield as many times as she could handle. Her knuckles were bruised and her foot ached as she stormed away. If someone had seen her though, they would of said she had just thrown a hissy fit, much like that of a toddler.

She made her way back to her room without coming across anyone else, which was a good thing, since she had not yet calmed down. She opened her door then turned and locked it immediately, Allura was not ready for visitors anytime soon. She then threw herself onto her bed, bouncing slightly, grabbing one of her many pillows and bringing it to her face so she could scream into it. She continued her fit until she was as red as the red lion and collapsed, exhausted. It just wasn't fair of Blue to ignore her now, now when the team needed all the lions the most.

She sighed and looked at her ceiling, there wasn't anything else she could do this quintant and sleep seemed more inviting than trying to connect with a giant mechanical sentient lion. Allura rearranged her pillows before tucking herself into bed, there was always next quintant.

~~~

It had been just over two week since the space flu fiasco and Lance's random sickness. They still didn't have answers for that, the control panel for the pods being especially unhelpful with its lack of information, and it was really starting to get to everyone. None of them could sit still, it seemed, and no one appeared more agitated by that than Pidge. She had all but set up shop in the infirmary, much to Coran's displeasure.

"Number 5," Coran said as he stormed into the infirmary, his usual light and happy demeanor had all but vanished in the past couple of days, "this is an infirmary, not a tech bay, and as such it needs to stay clean and clear!"

Pidge didn't acknowledge him in the slightest as she fiddled with her latest experiment. She was finding it difficult to come up with something useful to the team and Lance with there current situation, as she was unaware of all the variable. Why had Lance's comms gone down in that fight? Was there something else that was going on with Lance that no one else knew about? Something he hasn't told me ... us? What about all those ships from the two days Coran and Allura where in their comas? They had to have come from somewhere? But there had been only one lonely Battleship and that way too many fighters for only that one? Surely? How had so many attacked in such a small time frame?

"Pidge!" Coran raised his voice right in front of Pidge, it caused her to jump and drop her experiment onto the ground. She watched as it shattered into useless pieces before glaring up at Coran.

"What?!" She said with as much venom in her voice as possible. She watched as Coran flinched slightly before straightening up.

"An infirmary needs to be clean and clear, not full of junk and rubbish." Coran emphasised his point by waving his hand at the many fragmented pieces of Pidge's dropped experiment.

Pidge visibly vibrated with rage at that, calling her stuff rubbish after he caused her to drop it, she was not going to stand for the disrespect of her belongings. She took a deep calming breath then stood up, slowly, trying to keep a calm demeanor as she thought of something truly vindictive to do for the discretion. She grabbed one of her contraptions that she had been ideally working on recently and handed it to Coran. He took it without suspicion and examined it dismissively.

"Fine then," she said with an air of nonchalant, shrugging and waving her hands toward the device. "You can have my rubbish."

She smirked as the device activated and watched as Coran's face twisted in pain and threw it to the floor, watching it shatter into separate pieces that joined the first one, before leaving the room with a disgruntled 'fine'.

~~~

Shiro wasn't the type of person to get angry in these kind of situations, he was a thinker, a leader, a soldier. But he was also human and even as he tried his hardest over the last three weeks to help everyone else since the incident, he was only ever going to be human. And as a human there was only so much he could take. 

He had watched as Allura stormed around the Castle, no one even thinking of getting in her way. Blue had continued to refuse her and her irritation at the refusal just seemed to fuel her fury.

He watched Pidge make gadget after gadget to try and distract herself from her comatose friend, even if she barely ever left the infirmary now. Her sleeping habits had gotten worse, he didn't think it was possible, and she barely allowed other into the infirmary after what happened, the week before, with Coran.

Shiro watched as Hunk made so much extra food that they had had to move to a planet that was inhabited, just to get rid of some of it, and it didn't even stop him from making more. He did seem to be feeding everyone in the Castle though and that made Shiro feel the slightest bit better.

He watched as Coran relentlessly went through all the systems on the ship over and over again, trying his best to update and clean them, and clean, tidy, polish, the Castle thoroughly, checking every nook and cranny for anything that didn't belong.

He watched as Keith had barely left his room, his usually vigorous training and persistent schedule just going out the window with the depression he seemed to be suffering from. And in the end Shiro's involvement with any of them just managed to produce more problems then it solved.

All he was able to do was watch, watch as his team tore each other apart if any of them crossed paths, watch as it tore the bond between them all. He could almost feel the tear physically and he knew that they would not be able to form Voltron, even if Allura could manage to finally convince Blue to accept her, which didn't appear to be happening anytime soon. He felt useless and tired at this point and could only hope Lance would wake up soon.

~~~

Stress baking was something that always seemed to settle Hunk, even if it was only slightly. But this was on a whole different level now. 

It had started out slow, baking only enough for the team within the first week. The second week had had Hunk baking a bit more, everyone was concerned and no one would say no to a bit of comfort food. By the third, the four, the fifth, week Hunk was out of the kitchen looking for everyone, he knew where Pidge was, as after the first few days she hadn't really left the infirmary. But the others were a little harder to find occasionally. They had all slowly stopped coming to the dining hall for food, at the start everyone was missing a meal here and there, but then it had only escalated. One meal was missed, then two, then they just stopped coming all together. Hunk couldn't have that.

He felt like the only one in the Castle that had his head on right, he knew he didn't though. The amount of baked goods and other food he had made over the last couple of weeks was enough to say he didn't. But he was the most sane of the lot, he had the safest coping mechanism it seemed, and he tried to interact with everyone. The only one that conversed with Hunk anymore, though, was Shiro.

Hunk knocked on Shiro's door, knowing the black paladin would most likely be inside. He could hear shuffling before the door opened and Shiro stood there in his pajamas with a wide smile on his face, it didn't quite meet his eyes but Hunk knew he was having just as hard a time as the rest of them, maybe even more so.

"Hey Shiro," Hunk said with a warm smile, "I've brought lunch, do you want to have a chat?"

"Yeah, that'd be nice," Shiro replied, his smile more genuine as he stepped to the side to let Hunk into his room. Hunk went and sat on the bed, placing the plate of food next to him and picking up one of the bowls he had set on the plate earlier. Shiro went and sat on the other side of the plate doing much the same as Hunk. "Is this that new recipe you wanted to try?"

Hunk shook his head as he stared down at the food, he wasn't sure if he was even hungry enough to eat, that had been happening a lot lately. "I'm missing some ingredients that I kinda wanted to try with it, so I thought I'd just wait."

Shiro hummed softly around his mouthful of food, the silence dragging a bit as it always seemed to these days. Shiro finished his mouthful but didn't speak as he glanced over Hunk's frame and the bowl of food in his hands that hadn't been touched yet. "You've lost weight, Hunk." Shiro's voice was full of concern and Hunk turned to look him in the eye, then down to his forgotten food.

"I've ..." His voice cracked and he could feel a sob form in the back of his throat, he tried to swallow it down but failed when he began talking again. " I've just ... just not been hungry ... lately."

Hunk put his bowl back on the plate he had brought it on and started to sob into his hands, he couldn't hold them back as his body shuddered with the force of them. He could feel Shiro moving and the sudden warmth on his shoulders made him look up. Shiro's eyes were red and wet as he wrapped an arm around the yellow paladin, he started to press their sides together, pulling Hunk closer as he began to rock them back and forth. Hunk hadn't realised how soothing the rocking would be, and soon found his voice again.

"I miss him," Hunk whispered, he continued to cry quietly, "I just want him well again. I miss his laughter, his boisterousness, his annoying habit. I just ... I really miss him, Shiro." 

Hunk broke into sobs again. He couldn't help but think the worst was going to happen, that Lance was never going to wake up, that he might die somehow in his sleep. He just wanted his friend back.

"I know, Hunk," Shiro said, tears still running freely down his cheeks, his face the face of exhaustion, "I miss him, too."

~~~

Keith didn't really want to believe that the, possible, last words he'd said to Lance had been that everything was somehow his fault. Even if Keith had tried to say sorry, they still wouldn't be the last words that Lance remembered. It tore at Keith inside, he was never really an optimistic person and Lance had been in the healing pod for 7, almost 8, weeks now.

Keith looked down as he opened the doors to the infirmary, he could tell Pidge was giving him an odd look but he soldiered on. He stood on the steps before the locked down healing pod. How many more weeks until we finally get to see his face again, Keith thought as he sat down, cross legged, on he floor. At least he knew that the healing pod was keeping Lance alive. He sat down cross legged on the floor by the closed pod, but close enough that he could trace his fingers across the metal that closed Lance off from the rest of them. Keith heart squeezed painfully as his mind went to thought of Lance never coming back, never able to leave the pod, never waking up, never smiling at Keith again.

Keith could feel his eyes start to water, as his mind continued its pessimistic thoughts. What would happen to the team if Lance wasn't on it? Keith knew what less than two months had done to the team, the idea that this could be forever, that the team might have to replace Lance, Keith shuttered at his thoughts and turned toward Pidge.

She was already looking when he turned around and by the slight shimmer in her eyes, Keith guessed that she had been thinking similar thought. Keith couldn't bear the sight of his best friend being sad, so he turned his back and started to talk.

"You know," Keith started, a small fond smirk forming on his lips, "I did remember him, from back at the garrison."

Keith heard Pidge snort a laugh and the sound of her soft foot falls coming up behind him. Then her hand was on his shoulder as she eased her way down to sit right up against him.

"Why did you do that then? Pretend you didn't know him?" Pidge asked quietly, fiddling with the edge of her sleeve.

"I remember him being ... " Keith stopped himself quickly and felt his face flush, no I wasn't going to call him charismatic, or gorgeous, or entertaining, or beautiful, he thought to himself. "A handful ... Especially for the teachers."

Keith heard Pidge's chuckle but couldn't bear to face her with such a red face. He hoped it wasn't directed toward his stuttering and more to his choice of words.

"Yeah, he definitely wasn't winning Teacher's pet, that's for sure!" Pidge sighed and leaned into Keith a bit more, resting her head on his shoulder. "You know, when we first met you, Hunk and I had no idea who you were. Yet, there Lance was, pretty much screaming at us because we didn't know you. I mean how could we of? Hunk and I were engineer class, and the year below you? And, sure, it would have been easier for Lance to know you, you were both pilots of some sort, but it still seems strange to me."

Keith smiled at that, looking down at Pidge though his fringe. "You should tell me some stories, random adventures and what not that you've been though."

"I don't have many with Lance," Pidge stated, " I only knew him a little over half a year before ... you know," Pidge gestured around them vaguely, "all this."

Keith chuckled slightly, "it doesn't have to be with Lance, just any story," Keith looked Pidge in the eyes again, knowing what he will say next will make her blush and wanting to lighten the mood by teasing her for it. Pidge was just weird like that. "You're an amazing storyteller."

Once the words left his mouth, Pidge's face blossomed with red. Keith gave her a cheeky smile to rile her up. Which, of course, earned him a punch in the arm, then they both broke into laughter.

"Alright, so there was this one time," Pidge started, smile wide and infectious.


	9. Never the Same

Keith and Pidge had been talking and swapping stories for so long that they had fallen asleep on the floor in front of Lance's pod. They'd gained blankets sometime during the night, Keith suspected that was thanks to Shiro, and Keith pulled the blanket up further to hide from the cold. It took him a while to realise that his face felt like it was pressed up against something extremely cold and that was what was causing his slight shivering. Keith leaned up onto his arms, curving his back to try and stretch out the knots. Once done he sat back on his legs and rubbed his eyes clear of sleep. He could feel how oily and dirty his face was and laughed silently at the thought of Lance berating him for it.

He yawned and blinked his eyes open as he started to stretch his arms above his head. He froze half way.

The extreme cold something had been Lance's healing pod, the same one that was slowly opening to let him out. Keith couldn't find his footing quick enough. One foot kicking into Pidge's side, waking her up and causing her to firstly groan and grumble, then freeze completely.

Keith stood with his arms ready to catch Lance, no one was ever really stable after being in the healing pods, especially for that long. In reality though, Keith just wanted to be the first one to see Lance again, to apologise as many times as it could possibly take for Lance to forgive him.

The smoke, like that of dry ice, escaped to pod with a familiar whoosh followed by Lance not moments later. Keith was relieved at first, that Lance was awake. He hadn't expected them both to shout, it was definitely a shout and not a scream of agony.

It felt like fire was rippling up Keith's arms and all along the places Lance was touching him. The fire ripped through him quickly at first, then slowed to a crawl and finally stopped all together. It left him panting and dropping his forehead onto Lance's shoulder with exhaustion. He didn't even have it in him to be flustered or embarrassed about it. Once he got his breathing back to a somewhat normal state Keith lifted his head to look at Lance properly.

He hadn't been expecting to see Lance looking at him like he'd just grown a pair of cat ears or something. Or the fact that Lance didn't look quite like Lance anymore.

Keith recoiled slightly out of surprise, he didn't realise he still had a death grip on Lance's forearms or that Lance had a similar grip which kept them in a locked state. What he did realise was that Lance looked distinctly ... Altean.

His hair had grown in the two months he had been in the pod, all the regrowth was white. Keith had to admit, it looked kinda funny two toned like that, but it was also adorably curly, framing his face with curls that took Keith a while to stop staring at. He then spotted the Altean markings that were similar to Allura and Coran's own, Lance's being the palest in colour that it might as well have been white, but didn't quite seem white either.

Then Keith noticed Lance's eyes. They were staring back at him with an intensity that made Keith bite his bottom lip to stop from blurting something outrageous about Lance's eyes, because wow. He knew the Altean's had funny coloured pupils but he hadn't seen it this close before.

Lance's eyes were still as gorgeous as they had been before, although now they had a shimmering midnight blue as the pupils. His iris had a similar shimmer effect that reminded Keith of fine glitter catching the light. It was stunning and terrifying, how was Keith going to keep his crush silent now, but Keith just couldn't get enough of those eyes. That was until he heard coughing behind him and he broke apart from Lance as quickly as he could.

He turned around to be met with the faces of all his friends. Though, the look of outrage and disgust, that was obviously directed at him, from Allura made him confused. As well as the look of pity on Coran's face. At least the rest of the team only looked stunned. But then again, they were looking at both him and Lance with those stunned looks and that just confused him more.

"What?!" He spat out when it was obvious no one was going to break the silence.

"Ah, Keith?" Shiro questioned, waving a hand slowly over his head. Keith gave him a flat look, if this was over the fact that he probably had a bad case of bed head then, screw you Shiro.

Keith copied the movement of Shiro's hand anyway, of course he trusted his brother to not mess with him like this. What he came across made him freeze, his fingers were caught on what felt like his ears but didn't. And they couldn't be, they were on top of his head and they were soft like cat's ears, similar to the cat's Shiro had hidden at the garrison. His brain was in a whirlwind of thoughts but one stuck the most, even if it did confuse him greatly. His Galra heritage, but how? He was 98% sure that if he looked in the mirror he would see the purple catlike ears of the Galra, maybe even more but he just wasn't sure how.

He looked over to Lance, forgetting that Lance didn't look like himself at the moment either. He recoiled in shock, which earned him a confused and almost hurt look.

"What?" Lance said, defensively, giving Keith his biggest frown. They continued to stare at each other, Keith never taking his eyes of Lance's and Lance looked up toward his head where his ears now sat. They got interrupted by Hunk coughing and handing each of them a mirror.

Keith silently dreaded looking at himself, but knew he had to, so he chanced a glance at his face. Purple patches were scattered randomly around his face, it reminded him of those people with two toned skin, he wondered if Pidge knew what that condition was call. Then he noticed the big purple cat like ears sticking out from the sides of his head. He looked ridiculous, that's all he could say.

"Oh my God," Keith heard Lance say quietly to himself. He turned to Lance to see the boy darting his eyes around to everyone, completely bewildered. He shrieked as he continued, "oh god, what the quiznak? What the fuck?!"

"Language." Shiro sighed.

"No but what? Why? What kind of joke is everyone trying to pull?!" Lance shouted, his breathing increased rapidly before Hunk crushed him in a tight hug.

"Hey man, calm down," Hunk said in his most soothing and friendly voice, "we're not playing a joke on you, we're just as surprised as you are." 

Keith watched, only a little jealous, as Lance visibly deflated until Hunk was practically holding Lance upright. Keith turned his head when he felt a finger poking him in the face. He glanced at Pidge with a questioning look, only to be get an innocent smile back from the girl. He raised his eyebrow in question again and heard Pidge sigh.

"I wanted to know if the purple was fur or skin," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, pushing her glasses up her nose and crossing her arms, "it's skin by the way, which is no fun at all."

Keith was about to laugh at her and her invasiveness, he was way too used to it by now, but was stopped by Allura. 

"It is not meant to be fun, Pidge," Allura bit out, Keith's head turned in her direction just in time to see Shiro not so sutily push Allura out of the room. Coran came forward and place a hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly, before following Allura and Shiro out.

Lance groaned before everyone heard the growl of an empty stomach. Keith thought he heard more than one but he wasn't quite sure if he trusted his new ears yet. They could be messing with something in his head, making him hear things. But he and Pidge could figure that out later.

"How about we go get some breakfast and we can talk about..." Keith gestured to himself and Lance, "this?"

Pidge looked up at him with a knowing look, because of course she would know why he had said it that way. God damn it Pidge, he thought to himself as he fought off the blush that was so obviously rising on his cheeks.

"Hmm, sounds good, Keith." Lance replied with a bright smile on his face, his marking seemed to be glowing slightly and Keith didn't know what that meant. He smiled quickly back before making his escape to the dinning room.

~~~

Lance was a little scared, okay no he was shitting himself with how terrified he was. He didn't know if he was dreaming or if he was actually finally awake, it had felt like he had lived a thousand lifetimes but could remember none of them.

He was so sure he was dreaming for a number of reasons. One being, he'd come out of the healing pod and right into Keith's strong arms. Two, he'd watched as Keith's skin rippled and change colour in places. Then there was the ears, the gorgeous, cute, let me touch them please, ears that had sprouted on Keith's head. Then Hunk had given him a mirror, okay sure he was a little vain but not that much, man, come on. He had given Hunk a raised eyebrow and he had just gestured to the mirror. Once Lance had seen his reflection he'd frozen, it must have been for at least two minutes because what the fuck was he even looking at. That wasn't him, he didn't have white hair and white markings under his eyes, he didn't have eyes that glittered and shimmered, he didn't ... Okay, yeah, so he did have the natural curly hair but that's why he kept it short, okay.

After all that freaking out, and getting the most incredible hug from Hunk, Keith had said they should get food ... Get food and TALK! And it was after he'd come out of a healing pod, again. Did realise what he had just said? Did he remember when Lance had ask if Allura was asking for a date? Did he do it on purpose?

Lance had just smiled and said the first thing that came to mind, he couldn't even remember what he'd said. It didn't help that his only real memory of that talk was Keith smiling. He tried and failed to remember anything else as he walked down the hall alongside Hunk.

It didn't take long to get to the dining hall with Lance so lost in his thoughts. Hunk had separated from him when they passed the kitchen, saying food would be ready in ten. Lance wondered what it could be if it wasn't just food goo, he was so hungry at the moment he didn't think he really cared what went in his mouth.

"Lance!" Pidge said, swatting at him from across the table. He looked up to see her disgusted face and Keith blush, which was mottled along with his weird face marking. It was kinda cute.

"What?" Lance said innocently.

Pidge gave him an incredulous look then sighed out a 'whatever' as she grabbed her tablet, writing down whatever it was Pidge always seemed to be doing on her tech. Lance looked over to Keith with a raised eyebrow but Keith just turned to face away from him. 

Lance felt confused for a second until he remembered they both no longer looked like their normal selves. Maybe Keith didn't like how Lance looked now, now that he looked Altean and Keith's experience with Altean's wasn't the best. Allura was kind of a bitch to Keith at times. Lance thought about the why's and how's of their change in appearances for a while, but ultimately he gave up and asked Pidge instead.

"Hey Pidge," he said as he waved his hands sporadically to get her attention, "why do you think Keith and I look like this? I mean you must have an idea or a theory, already?"

"I do," Pidge said as she continued to type on her tablet, "Quintessence could have changed you both, it's happened before, but I've never seen it do that," she said as she waved her hand in Keith direction, not even glancing up at either of them.

Lance looked over again at Keith, his ears were down and his face covered by his fringe. He looked like a kicked puppy but Lance didn't understand why. Thankfully Hunk's voice announcing breakfast being ready broke Lance out if his thoughts of Keith and back to food. His stomach growled loudly as the smell of ... pancakes? wafted through the air.

Hunk placed the plate full of what looked like yellow pancakes in front of Lance and the others. He left for the kitchen again, coming back with a tray of condiments and his own plate of food. Hunk sat down next to Lance before grabbing one of the bottles of liquid and handing it to Lance.

"This one tastes the closest to maple syrup," Hunk said with a wide smile when Lance took it, " just don't use too much."

Lance placed some of the syrup on the pancakes, it came out as a very bright purple that was a little concerning. Lance cut the pancake into a bit sized piece and shoved it in his mouth. Lance couldn't remember the last time he had actually eaten human food, but this was so close to what he remembered, that Lance almost cried. He watched as the others took different syrups and put it on their own food before eating, none of them seemed to be enjoying it as much as Lance was and that was just unacceptable.

"Hunk, man, you've got this down to an art!" Lance said beaming at his friend, "this actually tastes exactly like earth pancakes, even if they are a weird colour."

Hunk just chuckled in reply going back to his own yellow and purple coloured pancakes. He'd used the same syrup as Lance but Lance could see that Pidge had forgone syrup altogether and Keith's syrup was some kind of grainy blue stuff. Lance's curiosity got the better of him and he watched as Keith cut himself a piece, stabbing it with his fork and was about to bring it to his mouth. Lance was quick as he grabbed Keith's fork right out of his hand, shoving the food in his mouth before anyone could protest.

Keith gapped as Lance passed him back his fork. Lance gave him a grin after swallowing his food.

"Lemon sugar pancakes?" Lance asked.

"Ah," Keith looked a little startled looking down at his own food, then the fork, and finally Lance's face. "Yeah."

"Of course you'd like lemon sugar pancakes," Lance said with a huff, cutting his own pancake into more pieces and gathering some on his fork before handing it to Keith. Keith took the offered fork, eating the food on it and setting it on his plate, but Lance suspected he didn't really realise what he'd done. Lance couldn't help but find that annoyingly adorable "You pretend to be sour but we all know you're sweet."

Lance heard everyone chuckle at his comment but it didn't faze him. He was only telling the truth. Keith had gone bright red at the statement, with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Fuck, that's pretty accurate." Pidge snickered.

"Gosh, Pidge," Lance said as he placed his hand over his heart. He was trying to avert attention, Keith looked completely red, apart from his purple patches with seemed to have a red hue to them. "You're turning into a sailor, what would Space Dad Shiro say about what you just said."

"Language, Pidge," Shiro's voice came from the doorway causing all the paladins to jump in fright. They all turned to him and watched as his face went from fake stern to trying to hold back obvious giggles. He eventually broke into a smile before walking over to sit by Hunk, which Lance found weird but didn't comment, and grabbed one of Pidge's plain pancakes off her plate. She send daggers his way but didn't comment on the theft, probably because she had only taken one bite before going back to her tablet.

"Allura said she wants to have a chat with you Lance, she said she might have some ideas as to what happened." Shiro said with a slight shrug of his shoulders, he obviously wanted to be in on the conversation but Allura must of said no.

Lance hurried though his food and ignored the chatter of the rest of the team as his mind was on other things. Maybe Allura did know what was happening, but why not have a meeting with the whole team? why only with him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, not too much more angst.  
> I'm also thinking of turning this into a series as I have too many ideas for the next part and it's probably going to be easier that way.  
> I love comments and encourage you all to leave some.  
> This story should have three or so more chapters if I do decide to turn it into a series so look forward to that. :D


	10. The Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After more than three months I've finally finished chapter 10. Sorry for the long wait and I hope you all enjoy. :)

Allura sat down at her console on the bridge, the mice playing idly in front of her. After her chat with Shiro she felt horrible, more so than she had in years. She didn't want to admit she was still having problems separating Keith and his Galra heritage. Last year had been terrible for him when the whole crew found out he was Galra, but now it appeared only Allura still had that particular problem, and she's knew that. She had feeling that she would never be able to accept the fact that Keith was Galra, but she needed to be able to act appropriately, especially now. The real trouble she was now having was that Keith looked more Galra then he previously had, and the sight of this was making it difficult for her to separate Keith and the Galra in general. 

She sighed as she ran her hands over the mice, their fur tickling her fingers. Shiro had said she needed to apologise to Keith for her behaviour before. _It hadn't been that bad_ , she thought to herself, _surely Keith could get over a little bit of grumbling, god knows he does plenty of that himself_. She sighed and brought her hands to her face, scrubbing with irritation. She hadn't felt she'd done anything wrong that would warrant an apology.

"Did I do something wrong back there?" She asked the mice and they looked up at her, wanting her to give them more details verbally. They were such weird creatures sometimes.

They ran around until the scene they made looked like the one in the infirmary from half a varga ago. They were playing as Keith, Pidge, her, and Shiro. She could see where she stood, the mouse playing as her had a scowl on its face, it's small mouse arms crossed before it. The Pidge and Shiro mice with shocked expressions and the Keith mouse with a blank look.

Her heart squeezed painfully as the mice tried to explain to her what she'd done wrong. She felt ashamed of her actions but she knew that her prejudice would take time to overcome. 

The mice crowded around her hand, giving it a hug in reassurance. She smiled down at them and straightened her back as the mice let go. She looked over toward the bridge entrance and stood up.

"Now I just need to figure out what to tell Lance," she said as she gazed back at the mice before starting to pace around the room in wait.

~~~

The door to the bridge stood closed before Lance. He had yet to activate it as his mind was elsewhere. Lance's gaze was on his hands as he turned them this way and that, they looked different somehow. Everything looked different and it had only just occurred to him while coming towards the bridge that something must be off with him. He couldn't really describe the weird way his eyes seemed to go into a hyper-focused state, the details of his hands fascinated him greatly as he watched the ripple of skin as the tendons in his hands moved. Even they felt different but it wasn't just his hands either, everything seemed either new or out of place. 

Lance could see the slight shakiness of his hands, he could feel how he swayed slightly for some unknown reason, and he could feel a slight pain at the base of his skull.

It was the pain that caused him to worry the most but it only lasted a few seconds before a wave of colour began to wash over his hands, seemingly under his skin. They rippled like a storming sea and Lance's breath quickened. He rushed to press the door activation button and raced inside. He could feel himself panicking but couldn't stop himself from looking at the rippling of colour on his hands.

Lance looked to Allura while he waved his hands in her face. His voice wasn't coming out as oxygen was hardly entering his lungs enough to breath. He stopped waving only to stare back down at them and let out a broken noise instead. 

Maybe later he would be embarrassed about his behaviour in front of the Princess but for now he was freaked out enough not to care.

"Ah," Allura grabbed one of his hands, stroking a finger over the still dancing colours, "it looks like you've discovered the chameleon abilities of the Altean people." 

Lance looked into her eyes with what could only be shock on his face. He realised then that he still hadn't accepted that this was his reality.

 _I mean how could it be, I can’t be Altean, that just makes no sense_ , Lance thought shaking his head violently.

"Lance!" Allura called his name sharply. It drew him from his thoughts like a bucket of cold water and he could feel himself shivering with it. It had also seemed louder than usual, but he knew the Princess wouldn't have raised her voice for something as simple as that.

"Lance," she said in a softer tone, tugging him down so they both sat cross legged on the floor, "there are a lot of things I need to tell you about being Altean." She paused looking around the room before sighing, "maybe it will be easier for me to explain how this could even happen to you in the first place.

"The Altean gene is a recessive one, I don't exactly understand it myself but I do remember the rare Altean hybrid. There weren't many species that could bare an Altean gene but I guess humans are one of them."

"Then Galra...?" Lance questioned, if Keith was both Galra and human and Lance was Altean and human then...

"Yes, they were one of the hybrids I had knowledge of," Allura said running a hand down her face.

Lance could tell she didn't want to have this conversation so he was going to change the subject, but he would definitely be returning to the Galra topic, if really only for Keith's sake.

"What other hybrids did you know of?" Lance asked, he wondered if Pidge should be here, she'd be lapping this information up like crazy.

"There was only really one other species, the UnsothQue, but I'm not sure if their alive still."

They talked more about the UnsothQue, about their Altean-esque appearance (Lance would have just gone with humanoid but whatever), about their sunset eyes coloured eyes, and about their apparently fire-like feathered wings. Allura talked about how they would set themselves of fire when with child and come out of their own ashes with their baby. As Allura continued to speak Lance thought these creatures sounded more like a humanoid Phoenix's, it was a strange thing to picture but Lance had seen stranger at this point.

Before long the topic changed returning to their discussion on Altean's. Lance was excited and nervous, he still doubted this as his reality but the longer he spent awake and with the team, the more he felt like he wasn't still dreaming. It was a lot to accept but he was doing his best.

"I've seen some hybrids get the Altean flu before," Allura stated, her face was pinched in a way that made Lance shutter, "not many survived," her head dropped to her hands and she let out a quiet sob. Lance pulled her closer for a hug and felt her frame shaking with silent sobs, it always hurt him to see his friends in pain.

Allura eventually straightened and wiped her eyes of excess moisture before looking over at Lance. "The ones that survived were the ones able to manipulate quintessence, and it always had to do with their Altean heritage."

Lance could feel Allura's eyes on him, it felt like he was a puzzle she was trying to decode with just a look. It was unnerving to say the least.

"I should see if Coran could help me figure out your heritage," she was saying it more to herself then to Lance, "it will definitely help me figure out how you used quintessence."

Her decoding look was back for a few moments before Lance could no longer take it, so he changed the subject, "You said before that there was stuff you had to tell me about being Altean?"

"Ah yes," her eyes seemed to light up in recognition, "Altean characteristics. Now you may not have all of these but from what I've seen so far you do have the chameleon ability.

"Others, like myself, have an increased strength compared to many other races and can be on par with the strength most all Galra's have. It is also said that there were also those whose markings amplify their sight but that could just be a myth my father told me." Allura sighed at the mention of her father, Lance knew it was going to be hard on her, bringing up anything to do with Altean stuff always brought up her father as well. It would never stop her though, and after a brief pause she continued.

"There were also those who able to channel quintessence. Not many are able to do this, Coran and my mother do not have this ability but my farther and I do, and as I said before it has something to do with genetics. It appears to be a hereditary trait from what I have been able to understand. 

"Altean's also live for much longer lives when compare to human ones. If Pidge is correct, humans live up to 100 deco-phoebes whereas Altean's can live to be 1000, give or take a century or two. Galra used to be very much the same until this war, I'm not sure many of them make it passed 500 now."

To say Lance felt overwhelmed would be an understatement. Allura had given him so much more information than he could process. Especially due to the fact that he was still trying to remind himself that this was real. But how could it be real, it just didn't make sense, nothing was.

"Hmm, I wonder," Allura murmured more to herself than Lance, he watched her as she got up to make her way to her control panel. "why did your hair turn white? Was it stress like Shiro's? I know that it can be a huge strain on the body what you underwent. Or," Allura spoke her gaze on him but focused on her own train of thought more, "it could be something else? Something hereditary?"

She turned to face the control panel again, seemingly unfocused until Coran's voice broke through the speaker and made both Allura and Lance jump.

"How can I help you, Princess?" Coran's once again cheery voice rang through the bridge. Allura couldn't help the smile on her face that bloomed because of it. It had been a hard two phoebes with Lance in the pod and everyone's mood plummeting, so it was good to hear it rising again.

"I have finished discussing some things with Lance and I was wondering if you might help me to figure out Lance's ancestry. It would be a great way of seeing if there are any more Altean's out there. If they have maybe colonised on a planet that we have yet to visit."

"Excellent idea, Princess. I will be up in two doboshes."

With that said the bridge was left in silence, Lance didn't know what to until Coran got here and apparently Allura was all out of conversation topics. Lance was grateful when Coran came in and immediately gave Lance a hug. He returned it as tight as he could and let go to pat Coran on the shoulder.

"Let's do this then, yeah?" Lance asked, motioning back toward the door.

Coran smiled, said a quick good bye to Allura, who appeared to be in a daze, and followed Lance out of the bridge doors. Coran knew that this was going to take a while to figure out and he knew he was doing this more for Lance's sake than Allura's, which was something he never thought he'd do. But here he was leading the boy back to the infirmary, so he could run test on him.

He had to tug at Lance's arm when the boy looked to be lost in thought. The pull drew his attention back to reality. Coran gave him a reassuring smile before gesturing to the place he'd sent more than 2 months in now and he really didn't want to, but he did anyway. He could trust Coran to tell him the truth.


End file.
